Sword of Change
by Tscorpio1701
Summary: The Chief has been asleep for over a decade, he wakes up to an old enemy and finds a way home and a new sword for the UNSC. What will happen when Humanity finds that the galaxy is even larger and more diverse than they belived possible?
1. prologue

**Sword of change**

Prologue

The Human Covenant war has been over for ten years, in that time the UNSC has rebuilt the former civilian government, which had been disbanded during the war with the Covenant. It was a time of healing for humanity, all of the Outer-Colonies had been attacked and occupied by the Covenant, sixty planets were glassed, and the rest of the six hundred colony worlds had their settlements razed to the ground. The Inner Colonies were mostly intact, having been bypassed when the location of Earth had been discovered. Refugees had flooded into the Inner-Colonies, straining the planets individual resources. With the war over most were able to return to their original colonies to rebuild, but the worlds that had been glassed, including Reach, would take decades to Terraform back into their former selves.

A peace treaty with the Covenant Separatists was signed in 2554, stating that they would help each other in their hour of need, which the Sangheili and their allies gave in the form of humanitarian aid and helped to rebuild civilian and military infrastructure. The UNSC began to implement the reformation of a civilian government, since the military was meant to serve the people in defence of the nation, not govern it. The Unified Terran Government was formed, taking over from the old UEG. Wealth would be shared equally between the Colonies and Earth, and state rights were given as the individual colonies became self-sufficient. Corruption was thoroughly stamped out and severe punishments were given.

However through all of these changes the question that people asked the most was, what happened to the Master Chief, was he dead or was he still alive somewhere out there, trying to find his way home?


	2. Chapter 1

AN: I put these events at just five years before the Phantom Menace, though interaction between the Republic and the Terran Alliance wont happen until some time afterwards. Enjoy.

**Sword of change Ch.1**

Space is a cold and mostly empty place, pot marked with various star systems and punctuated by cold empty wastelands between stars. This little corner of the galaxy was occupied by a broken UNSC Frigate, the Forward Unto Dawn, split roughly in half when it got caught in mid-jump when the new Halo array activated. The Chief and Cortana have been slumbering in silence, waiting for rescue that would probably never come. The Dawn continued to drift slowly through space, its reactors still hot, but at low power levels, many systems had been heavily damaged during the escape. It would however not be alone for long, for it was slowly drifting towards a large group of ships, two hundred in all, with six blocky engines, a hexagonal mid section and an overlapping bow. It didn't take long for the Dawns remaining sensors to detect the fleet, the computers sub-routines, programmed by Cortana before she went into standby mode, brought the ships reactors to full power and environmental systems came online, though several sections of the ship had been exposed to vacuum. The Cryo-chambers began the process of reviving the Chief and Cortana came out of standby mode, slowly coming back to life.

The Chief awoke groggy, with a slight headache and his mouth tasted like sand paper. He looked around and saw no sign of Cortana. "Cortana?" he called out gruffly, yet still softly, for him.

At the nearby holo-pad Cortana appeared, slowly forming into her avatar. "Soooo looong," she said, her form coalescing into a beautiful woman, covered in numbers and equations flowing over her avatars purple and blue body. "Sorry about that, took a little while to get back my equilibrium, you have no idea what over ten years of Standby mode can do to an AI."

"Why did we wake up, is it an emergency or is it rescue?" the Chief asked.

"Can't tell, the computer woke us up when it detected ships, over two hundred of them, apparently their not moving at all under their own power, it could be our escape off this wreck," she said hopefully.

The Chief got his MA5C Assault Rifle and checked its magazine, it was only half full.

"An armoury two decks above us has survived intact, you can procure some ammo and weapons there," she said helpfully.

"Right," he reached for Cortana's crystal chip and took it out. He took a second to just look at it, marvelling that something so small could house something or someone so powerful. He inserted into the base of his neck, the feeling of liquid nitrogen going down his back when Cortana accessed his suit and used parts of his brain and nervous system as storage.

"Phew, look at all the cobwebs in here, what a mess, how did you ever survive without me for so long?" she quipped.

"You'd be surprised," he retorted and made his way to the armoury, his magnetic boots making sure that he didn't float away. Even though most systems on the Dawn were intact, if you discount the missing forward section, artificial gravity was a complete write-off to get back online. He moved steadily forwards, reaching a sealed section where it was exposed to vacuum.

"Let me guess, this is where we have to go?" he asked Cortana.

"Yes, unfortunately," she said.

The Chief shook his head in frustration and thumbed the keypad on the side of the door, sealing the section he was in and depressurizing it. The door opened silently and he was greeted to a sight he had hoped he had seen the last of. Flood Infection forms. They scurried towards him, using whatever purchase they could find. The Chief raised his Assault Rifle and tore the three Infection forms to pieces with well placed shots.

"I thought we killed them all when we detonated the HALO," said the Chief angrily.

"We did, these must be stowaways when we escaped. I may be able to get internal scanners online and track them, but we'd need to get to a remote ops station, the bridge went with the rest of the forward section when the ship got cut in half."

"Ammo first," he said gruffly, not wanting to be caught out with a weapon out of ammo.

They made their way to the armoury without further incident, stopped only by the armoury's heavy door. The door had been hardened against attacks from small arms and explosives, but the designers had not factored in the strength of a Spartan II, whom could upright a Scorpion tank with very little effort, whom was now ripping off the door off its hinges and tossing it aside as if it was just a piece of cardboard. "And the Caveman lives up to his name." Cortana protested the unnecessary violence used to simply open a door,

"We should be thankful that this part of the ship was exposed to vacuum; the ammo should still be good," she said.

The Chief stocked up on munitions, a pair of M6D hand guns, another pair of M7 sub-machine guns and an M90 shotgun. He picked up a small duffel bag and loaded up with several clips for his weapons, then took a bandolier of shells for the shotgun and another one with frag grenades.

"You got enough there, big guy?" she asked comically.

"There is no such thing as overkill when it comes to the Flood," he said gravely. He turned and left for the remote ops station on this deck, encountering two more Flood Infection forms and blasting them into oblivion with the M90. He loaded a pair of fresh cartridges as he went, not stopping or slowing down, knowing that with the internal scanners he would be able to track them down and exterminate every last one of the little bastards. He turned a corner and found the remote ops station, covered in more Infection forms.

"Great, just what I need," he said to himself, Cortana, seeing the sight of so many, remembered briefly her experiences when she had been captured by the Gravemind, and filled with a rage she didn't know she could possibly possess. "Kill them John, exterminate the bastards," she said coldly.

"My sentiments exactly," he said, raised his shotgun and took aim, but in the back of his mind he hoped that Cortana's reaction wasn't one of the first signs of Rampancy. He pulled the trigger and all hell broke loose, he caught five Infection forms with the first shot, and kept firing, blasting more and more of them to hell, even as more came upon him, crawling across their dead. He soon ran out of shells and quickly reloaded, the Flood closing in on him quickly, he managed to get eight out of a maximum of twelve shells into the shotgun, and continued shooting them, catching several at a time. More and more Flood came, living up to their name in the most terrifying way. The Chief just kept blasting away, pausing only to reload; a routine began to form, fire until he ran dry, and then pause to reload, and blast away, repeating the process as long as there were shells. He soon ran out of shotgun shells and switched to the M7s, dual wielding them he hit every time, each round was a delayed explosive round that would penetrate then detonate inside, not a single bullet was wasted. The ammo lasted a bit longer than the shotguns, bigger clips more ammo and reloading was also faster. Soon there were no more Infection forms in sight, and the Chief could finally relax somewhat and put the M7s back into their holsters.

"John behind you," Cortana called out as she saw, using the suits own sensors to track them, an Infection form sneaking up behind him and preparing to leap on him. He pulled out one of the M6Ds and fired, hitting the Infection form square in the centre, exploding when the delayed explosive round blew.

"That was close John," she said in a relived voice, happy that her partner wasn't going to become some Flood infected combat form.

"Too close, thanks Cortana, now how about we get those internal scanners back up and running, hmm," he replied and took out Cortana's chip and inserted it into the nearby console. She quickly found the problem and bypassed the damage; she got the location of every last one of the Flood. There weren't many left, but there was another problem.

"Looks like the Flood are heading for the Hangar Bay, trying to access a Pelican, I've locked them down so they can't take off, but they may find another way off the ship."

"Then I'll just have to get there before they go anywhere else, I will not allow a single Flood Infection form off this ship intact," he swore. He got up and went to the closest armoury. "Cortana, you stay here and monitor them, if they move towards you or go somewhere else on the ship I want you to inform me."

"You got it John, be careful." He silently nodded to her and went back to the armoury to restock on ammo, then took off at a dead run for the ships hangar. He soon reached the hangar, the Flood was all over one of the Pelicans, trying to gain access and having very little success. The Chief raised his Assault Rifle and let loose a series of controlled bursts, slaughtering the Flood. This seemed to piss them off as they came straight for him, braving the barrage of weapons fire that the Chief sent towards them. More and more Flood exploded into little more than indescribable piles of bio-matter. They continued to race towards the Chief across the Hangar bay as more and more of their numbers were gunned down, Cortana was feeling very smug that the Flood was no match for a Spartan on the hunt. Soon they were all dead, nothing more than dead bio-matter. The Chief went back to the remote ops station, stopping by the armoury to restock again along the way.

"Anymore of the bastards?" he asked Cortana.

"No John, I can safely say that the Dawn has been successfully purged of its Flood infestation, nothing like a Spartan when you want to clean house," she replied smugly.

The Chief shook his head at the AIs comments. "Anymore intel on those ships out there?"

"None, they are all dead in the water just like us, yet I detect no discernable damage, at least externally."

The Chief thought for a couple of seconds then said, "Unlock one of the Pelicans, I think it's time we did a proper investigation."

"Done," she said, and the Chief took out the Chip and reinserted it into his armour, the feeling of liquid nitrogen slipping down his spine again. He went back down to the hangar and got onboard the Pelican and got it ready for takeoff.

"Would you like me to drive John?" asked Cortana in her sweetest voice possible.

"No, I'll drive," he responded and flew the Pelican out of the Dawn, heading for the unknown fleet. He approached with caution, moving at low burn acceleration, the individual ships were coming into view, all but one of them were virtually identical at 600 meters long, but one of them was substantially bigger, about a kilometre in length and even more heavily armed with a few more communication antennae beside the main transceiver dishes. He guided the Dropship into what looked like a hangar bay, just behind the 'head' of what the Chief assumed to be the Flagship. He landed without incident or challenge, stepping out of the Pelican. The hangar bay housed twelve long nosed four engine fighters with a pair of cannons mounted on the wing tips.

He noticed that there were no lights or power on at all, so he walked, or rather attempted to walk, just to float off the deck when he stepped off the dropship. He activated the magnetic bottoms of his boots and gently landed back on the deck. He continued on to the aft section where he assumed engineering was. The corridors were equally spooky, no lights, no signs of life and still no pressurized sections. He discovered several floating bodies, all frozen and hanging in midair, and what surprised the Chief was that they appeared to be human, but due to the disfigurement that happened when they crew got exposed to hard vacuum it was hard to tell. He got to the engine room and started looking over the displays, which seemed to still have some power left. He reached for a nearby console and said, "Do your thing Cortana."

She seemingly flowed from his hand and once again swam in a veritable sea of numbers and equations, all representing different sub-systems. She soon hacked her way through the encryptions, translating the information directly from the binary code. She got control of the ships Computer and initiated main power. A gentle hum sounded as the reactor came to life again, after five years of silent waiting. She also got more access to the ships logs and files, learning the fate of the crew through the security recordings and private notations from the ship's doctor.

She activated a nearby holo-pad and sprang forth. "Chief, you are not going to believe this." She told him everything that she had found in the database, about the Galactic Republic, about the humans that seemingly populate a vast amount of the galaxy. "I guess the Forerunners seeded more than just Earth with Human life. These people are from the other side of the Galaxy, and they have a history longer than human recorded history, about twenty five thousand years. I also found out what happened to the fleet's crew. They were all infected with something called a Hive Virus; it drove them mad and eventually killed them all."

She showed images of what happened on the nearby monitors, crewman going hand to hand, shooting people at random and opening sealed airlocks. "The Commanding Officer of this fleet, the Captain of the Katana, initiated a random Hyperspace jump then ordered a shut down and emergency venting of the entire fleet. It seems that this was an experimental fleet, trying out new systems, increased automation, but it seems that this fleet was doomed from the beginning."

"Explain," said the Chief coldly. Nothing got the Chief angrier than the deaths of innocents.

"It seems that their shipment of medical supplies, possibly the stores a substance known as Carsunum Spice, was tainted with this virus and within a couple of weeks the entire crew went insane and then died," she said, the saddest look had come upon her face.

"What's the status of this ship?" he asked, concentrating on more immediate problems.

"All systems are fully operational, including their FTL drive, we can go home now," she said in absolute relish. "Oh, and since this is the Flagship I have total control of the entire Katana Fleet, and I just sent a signal to them to restart their reactors, they seem in pretty good shape for having been floating aimlessly through space for five years."

"What about supplies, are they still good?"

"The stuff aboard the Katana Fleet is definitely gone bad, but the stuff in the Dawn's secondary cargo bay should be good."

The Chief set off back to the Katana's launch bay and took off in the Pelican back to the Dawn, cruising on full burn. He landed and headed towards the ship's cargo bay; inside he found ten fifty ton containers, each mounted within a latticework of bright yellow crossbeams, thruster pods at each corner, containing everything he needed to survive and plenty of spare ammunition and weapons. He opened the outer doors and with a great whoosh of depressurization the containers were ejected into space, thruster pods firing on a preset course for the Katana. They were then brought onboard using the Katana's tractor beams.

The Chief then went to the ship's armoury and prepared a little gift for any Flood forms still on the ship. He then returned to the Pelican at a dead run and red lined the engines, shooting out of the Dawn's launch bay like a bat out of hell. Seconds later the Forward Unto Dawn lit up the surrounding space like a small nova, buffeting the Pelican as the shrapnel and debris pounded the Pelican. He managed to land the Pelican, despite the damage to it, and walked away.

"Welcome back John, just follow one of the mouse droids," a small black, boxy little droid on tiny wheels came up to the Chief. "It will show you to the ships bridge, I'll be waiting for you." The Chief obediently followed the little droid, the lights were on now, and he noticed that the walls were coloured in flamboyant blue, something he didn't notice when the ship was in darkness. He also noticed that a large number of droids in various configurations were all over the place doing various tasks.

He soon arrived on the bridge, every station was up and running and Cortana's avatar was standing by a plotting table. "Hi John, all systems operational, but it will take a while for the rest of the Fleet to get ready, I'm only working with their onboard complement of droids, you know, not with a fully crewed fleet."

"How long?" he asked.

"Another hour and we'll be on our way home, and you'll be happy to know that, in galactic terms, we're not too far away from Harvest, and you can bet that if the UNSC and the Covenant Separatists won the UNSC may have a presence there."

"Good, how fast can we be there?"

"A weeks travel in Hyperspace, a slightly different dimension than Slipspace, but I can still navigate."

The Chief took the Captain's seat and sat down, it groaned in protest.

"I suggest that you get up until I can get that thing reinforced, or you could take your armour off," she said cheekily.

"I don't think so," he responded and got out of the Chair as a droid with a domed head trundled forward and started working on it.

An hour later the Katana Fleet was in formation again after five years of being dormant. They got the coordinates from the Flagship and as one they elongated and accelerated to speeds well beyond light speed. They would each be given a new purpose and each would serve with honour, acting as humanity's shield and sword.

TBC

Hope you enjoyed this, I am still going to continue this story however updates will be sporadic as my muse takes me just about everywhere. Please leave a review.


	3. Chapter 2

**Sword of Change**

**Chapter 2**

Harvest used to be known as the breadbasket of the Outer Colonies, sporting vast open landscapes of farmland, sprawling forests, rolling hills, several fresh water lakes teeming with fish and a pair of vast oceans surrounding a super-continent. Now it was a frozen wasteland, partially glassed by the Covenant in the Prophets mad search for Forerunner artefacts. A large space station orbits the planet now, connected to the planet by a Space Elevator over the same sight that the planet's capital of Utgard once stood. They were monitoring the progress of the terraforming project, a process that would still take a few more years to complete.

It had been nice and peaceful in this system, ever since the end of the Human-Covenant War, but today the peace would be broken by the unexpected return of a couple of heroes, and the way they returned. Well outside the gravity well of the planet a hundred alien warships dropped out of an unknown form of FTL, setting off alarms off all over the UNSC Navy base.

Admiral Paul Nichols, a tall dark man in a dark blue Navy duty uniform, had been rudely awakened by the sirens screeching, he had been taking a short nap from the boring paperwork that accompanied being the commanding officer of a star base.

"Status report," he called out calmly.

"Sir, an unidentified fleet just appeared on our screens sir, decelerating rapidly and two hundred strong," reported the Officer of the Watch.

"Please tell me you sent the First Contact Package the moment they were detected."

"Yes sir, it was the first thing we did, but there has been no response, so I ordered action stations just in case and raised base shields."

"Good thinking lieutenant, we'll make you a Captain yet," the Admiral humorously said.

"Sir, we're getting a response from the Alien Flagship, sir you better hear this," said a communications officer, not quite believing his own ears, switched to speakers.

"_Repeat this is Master Chief Spartan-117 to UNSC forces, please respond."_

The room was silent in shock, the greatest hero of the Human-Covenant War had returned after ten years, but with two hundred ships bearing down on them they couldn't really take the chance it was a trick.

"This is Admiral Nichols to the person calling himself Spartan 117, how can we be sure that you really are who you say you are?"

"_If you scan the other vessels in the Fleet you will see that there are no other life signs, beside my own on the Flagship, the Katana."_

The Admiral turned to one of his sensor operators who reported. "Confirmed, there are no lifesigns coming from any of the ships, but there are thousands of life forms onboard," he reported.

"Care to explain that, Chief," the Admiral asked, this was starting to get interesting, in possible the Chinese sense of the word.

"_I believe I can answer that,"_ said Cortana. _"The crew was killed by a virus."_

This statement sent a shiver down the Admirals spine. "Have you been exposed to this virus?"

"_Negative, virus was not airborne; it was laced in the crew's medical supplies, indicative of possible sabotage,"_ said Cortana. _"However I suggest you send over a Hazmat team to do a proper sweep, as well as a full medical team, jolly green giant here has been through a lot and I don't want him to die because of a damned virus."_

The Admiral dispatched two Pelican Drop Ships, one with a full Hazmat Team, the other with a full squad of marines to secure the ship and a small medical team. The Hazmat team found not a single trace of the virus, specifics on the virus were provided by Cortana from the ships databanks. The marines searched the ship from top to bottom, securing it and looking for possible stowaways, namely the Flood. The medical team went to the Bridge where the Master Chief sat in the Captains Chair.

"You guys better get him back to the base, he has sustained a lot of injuries from his last mission and don't bother protesting Chief, the last mission really did a number on you."

"All right, but I'll be back."

"I'll be here waiting for you."

He was led back to the Pelican, setting off for the Harvest Space Station to get proper treatment. In the mean time Cortana had the 'pleasure' of entertaining a few of the engineers that Admiral Nichols sent over to take a look around, while she managed the day to day running of the Katana Fleet.

A couple of hours later, after the doctors had treated the Spartan, Admiral Nichols came down to the stations sick bay, to see the Chief for himself, but also to get an explanation for how the Chief came across this fleet. He found the Chief sitting on a medical bed with numerous consoles surrounding him and small sensor pads were dotted about on his temples, upper body and neck area. He had his armour and skin suit removed to make it easier for the doctors to provide treatment. He had short dark brown hair, he was extremely pale, like someone who hadn't seen sunlight in a very long time. Even without his armour he still looked imposing, thickly muscled and well built, all coming from hard training. He still looked young, late twenties, early thirties, biologically speaking he wasn't wrong, being in Cryo did stop the aging process, but chronologically he was roughly 51 years old.

"Good day Spartan 117, I am Admiral Nichols; I was hoping that you could, perhaps, answer a few questions?"

"I'll try to answer sir," responded the Chief.

"How did you come by this fleet? The official reports say that the portal cut out before most of the ship could get through."

"Apparently we got cut off mid-jump, and got caught in the back-wash of the portal, propelling us far enough away in Slipspace to avoid the Halo's blast wave, then me and Cortana were trapped aboard the Dawn with no Slipspace drive, and no way home, so I went into Cryo and Cortana went into Standby mode to repair and preserve herself."

He continued on about them being woken up by the ships computer when the Dawn's remaining sensors detected the Katana Fleet, the discovery of Flood stowaways and his efforts to eradicate them. He then told of his and Cortana's little investigation of the Katana and what happened to its crew. He ended with the return to the Forward unto Dawn, the retrieval of its emergency supplies and its destruction.

"That's quite a story, mister. I have been given orders to send you, Cortana and the Katana Fleet to the Sol System for a full debrief and to salvage and perhaps incorporate the Fleet into the UNSC."

The Admiral spotted the attending physician in charge of the Chief. "Hey doc, how's he doing?"

"Well, besides a lot of bruising, he also has several fractured ribs, though they're quickly healing, quite a few second degree burns from the heat of plasma fire that managed to get through the suit, but he is recovering nicely, he should be completely healed by the end of the week, assuming he doesn't over-exert himself," he said pointedly at the Chief, knowing that he had been in combat almost non-stop for twenty seven years, with only small breaks here and there.

"Is he healthy enough to travel?"

"Yes, as long as he doesn't overdo it," the doctor said exasperatedly, knowing the habits of career military people.

"Well then Chief looks like you're going back to Earth sooner you expected," he said.

The Chief returned to the Katana, taking the scenic route around the two hundred new ships for the UNSC Navy. They may be small by UNSC, standards, but he knew that they packed a serious punch; a few barrages from just one of the Dreadnoughts could conceivably bring down the shields of a Covenant cruiser fairly quickly. He soon landed and went straight to the bridge, carrying a disc with new orders as well as the coordinates for Earth.

"Cortana fire up the Hyperdrive, we've been ordered to the Sol system," he said as he entered.

"What, no hello, how you doing or any of the usual pleasantries," she quipped, a little hurt.

"Sorry Cortana, but we've been ordered to head for Sol System ASAP," he said apologetically. He was also carrying a package, a little gift from the stations commander, which Cortana did not fail to notice.

"What's in the box?"

"A dress uniform," he said shortly. He never like the damn things, he felt more comfortable in his Mjolnir armour.

"I'll bet you would look rather handsome in that," said Cortana, giving the Chief a slightly evil smirk.

He just snorted and took the Captains chair. "Take us out of orbit Cortana, then jump to Hyperspace, set course for Sol."

"Aye aye, Captain," she said, mock saluting and disappeared, using all her concentration to control all two hundred warships. They turned as one and broke orbit, their powerful Ion drives making short work at getting out of orbit. They soon broke out of the gravity well and the entire fleet elongated and accelerated until they were nowhere to be seen.

A day later, faster than any ship from the UNSC, before they got access to advanced Covenant designed Slipspace drives, the two hundred ships of the Katana Fleet appeared in just outside the orbit of Jupiter, setting themselves on course for the Jovian Shipyards, a massive complex in orbit of Jupiter, sharing its orbit with the many moons and the local belt in orbit of Jupiter itself. Many of the resources come from the gas giants sixty three moons, used to build the ships that the Navy uses. Both before and during the war the shipyards were used mainly as an R&D facility, building most of the experimental warships that would later go into production, but late in the war the Jovian Shipyards were expanded extensively, they were also equipped with the ONI developed cloaking system, the same system employed on their Stealth Frigates, which saved them when the Covenant discovered the location of Earth.

Now it would play host to the two hundred Dreadnought class Cruisers that were coming, they were quickly escorted in, several slips had been prepared before they had arrived, and just in time too, they were not expecting that the Katana Fleet would get there so quickly. Even with the newer more advanced Covenant Slipspace drives it still took a while to get from Harvest to Sol, normally a week for the fastest Navy ships.

The return of the Master Chief turned into a media circus, someone at Harvest managed to get word to the media that the last Spartan, the one that supposedly died ten years ago, was back, alive and kicking. The Navy, in particular ONI, took full advantage of this, presenting the Chiefs face for the first time in full dress uniform when he stepped off the Katana, saluting his superior officers. That image was circulated all across Terran territory and even beyond. It was a hell of a morale boost for a people who only ten years earlier had their collective asses handed to them.

There were a lot of briefings, for both the Spartan and Cortana, which lasted for over a week. They gave the brass their account of what happened at the Ark, their escape from it, and the subsequent return home. UNSC and the UTG had made many advances over the last decade, in particular Smart AIs. They had found a way to increase the average lifespan of a Smart AI from the previous seven years to twenty by simply wiping data from her AI matrix. She still had access to the information, but it would have to be in a separate database to not clog up her memory.

At one of the briefings, this one with Fleet Admiral Terrance Hood, the Chief needed to get a few answers.

"What happened to Doctor Halsey and the remaining Spartans? I've read the official reports but they don't tell me much," he said confused.

"The last report stated that they were on Onyx, apparently looking for an entrance to something called a Forerunner Shield World," the Admiral said, bringing up what little information he had on the holo-screen. "The UNSC Dusk, a Navy Prowler, was the only survivor of the Battle of Onyx, Battle Group Stalingrad and the Covenant forces were completely destroyed when the planets garrison of Forerunner Sentinels rose up, causing the planets outer crust to break up, essentially destroying the planet, but there are still Sentinels in the system, attacking anything that comes even close."

Cortana reviewed the information, cross-referencing it with the knowledge in her databanks, which she downloaded when she was on the Ark.

"I know what this planet was," she said, getting the various Generals and Admirals in the room to pay attention to her. "This was one of several Shield Worlds created by the Forerunners as a safe haven of sorts from the Halo when it fires; the main component of a Shield World is a complete and thorough Micro Dyson Sphere, located within a Slipspace bubble of compressed space-time. The only way in is a small portal that constitutes the only real-space component of a Shield World. Access to Shield Worlds was only possible upon the imminent activation of the Halo Array. Now we activated Halo installation 04B at roughly the same time as the Battle of Onyx, if there were any survivors they may have escaped into it."

"You're saying that there may be survivors inside the Shield World?" asked one of the Admirals incredulously.

"Yes, the beauty is that time goes much slower inside than it does out here, where ten years have gone by here roughly a year's time has passed within."

"How do we get in if the gateway has been sealed?" John asked.

"Fortunately there is another Shield world that is relatively close by," she showed an image of the galaxy, highlighted a star roughly thirty light years from Earth and zoomed in, finding a system with a Red Dwarf Star, with a dozen rocklike planets, and a large debris belt. She zoomed further in towards the rocky planet furthest out from the Red Dwarf, then showed a detail schematic of what it was composed of. A thin outer crust riddled with miles upon miles of tunnels from the surface to the very centre, deeper into the planet rested trillions of Sentinels, waiting to be unleashed upon the Flood or any forces that would attempt to break through.

"This system is known to us as the Wolf 359 system, within it is another Shield World, hidden away in and it was built after the betrayal of the Forerunner AI 032 Mendicant Bias, so the Flood would have no idea that it existed, unfortunately they were unable to use it in time before they had to activate the rings. From here I can open a portal to any Forerunner construct, anywhere in this galaxy, including Onyx," she said smugly.

"What's the down side? There is always a down side," said the Chief.

"The portal would only be open for a short time, so we'd be against the clock in getting anyone out, and afterwards I wouldn't be able to open it again for another hundred Forerunner Cycles, roughly a hundred of our years, it takes a lot of energy to open a portal to any of these Shield Worlds, mainly because they have to penetrate the planets defences," her smile dropped at the thought, since she would probably be long dead by then.

"So the question becomes who do we send, the Chief and Cortana have to go since they know more about Forerunner tech and possible hazards than any human alive," said Admiral Hood, knowing that their experiences on the Halos and the Ark would no doubt come in handy.

"They should also get some backup, for something as important as this a full Fleet should be sent to this planet," said Admiral Leftcourt, chief of operations and the head the 10th Fleet, one of twelve active Fleets now patrolling UTG space.

"Such a large Fleet would attract the attention of the Covenant Remnant, and the Sangheili still revere the Forerunners, it could reignite hostilities," said Admiral Hood. "We'll send a Battle Group; sending one of them won't attract as much attention as a sending one of our Main Fleets. Do we have any Battle Groups that can be readied Butler?"

A fat little man sprang forth from one of the smaller holo-emitters around the long table in front of the Admiral. It was the Admirals personal Smart AI, who handled a lot of the paperwork and as a direct link with the main computer.

"Admiral Nimitz's Battle Group, the Iowa, is available, though they just got off a six month patrol around the Outer Colonies."

"How long would they need to ready for a mission like this?"

"A month's time would be needed for the crew to recover, but if needed to they could depart again within a week."

"No, we need to plan this carefully, Cortana I want you to work with Admiral Nimitz and the Master Chief to come up with a plan of action, use any and all resources you think you will need."

"Aye sir," she responded.

The meeting ended and everyone was dismissed, Admiral Hood hoped that this mission didn't go south, he didn't want to lose any more lives than necessary and he was quite sick of war.

A couple of days later the Iowa and its Battle Group exited Slipspace in orbit of Jupiter and quickly got themselves settled in the Jovian Shipyards docking slips. The Iowa was the first of a new breed of warship, a Fast Battleship, borrowing a term from the old Wet Navy. It was over two kilometres long, slightly reminiscent of the Marathon Class Cruisers, but had a wider hull to accommodate its three massive MAC guns, one 1200 ton and two flanking 600 ton guns. It was built around the MAC guns and the six oversized engines arranged in a hexagonal formation around the rear engineering section and covered in heavy Titanium-A Battle Plating.

Admiral William 'Bill' Nimitz looked on at the sprawling shipyards, spotting a large number of alien ships in a number of docking slips, slightly bigger than a Forward class frigate. He wondered what sort of ships they were, but his musings were cut short by Surge, the Iowa's ship borne AI.

"Sir, I am getting a request from Admiral Hood to meet with him in one hour for a meeting, message doesn't say what sort of meeting."

"Very well, commence docking procedures Surge and prepare a Pelican for launch."

Surge nodded and his avatar, a middle aged man in full Captains dress uniform of the United States Navy, winked out and went about his work. The Ride on the Pelican was short, but he got to take a closer look at one of the ships that were docked at the Shipyard. He was brought to the Admirals office where he got the surprise of his life. There he met Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 and Cortana, one of the biggest heroes of the war, at the time he had been Captain of an Iroquois class Destroyer Will of Iron. He got briefed and got his new mission; take his Battle Group along with some heavy reinforcements to the Wolf 359 system.

"This mission is on a volunteer basis, you don't have to do this Bill," said Admiral Hood.

"I'll do it, but let me make one thing clear; once we're there it's my mission, I decide who gets to go down to the planet and I give the orders, I won't have some ONI spook taking over and ruining the mission," he said in a gruff and serious tone, having never liked spooks and how they operated.

"Very well, the mission is yours, just bring your people home alive and safe, and get those people trapped in there."

Nimitz just smiled at that, "Aye sir."

The next two weeks was spent getting the Battle Group ready. It was already powerful with the Iowa itself, two Marathon class Cruisers, the Genghis Khan and Napoleon, ten Iroquois class Destroyers and twenty Forward class Frigates, the same class as the Forward unto Dawn. Joining the Battle Group was the Navy Super Carrier Kitty Hawk, 3.5 kilometres long and armed with one single 1200 ton MAC gun slung underneath the main hull, most of its internal space given over to housing its 240 Katana class fighters, 72 Longsword Fighter/Bombers and 32 Pelican Dropships. Also joining them was the Phoenix class troop ship Olympic Voyager, originally a colony ship, she had been instrumental in rebuilding a number of Outer-Colonies and before that was used as a troop carrier in the War.

It was now over three weeks since John-117 and Cortana had returned home and already their services were needed. They were taking a Pelican to Admiral Nimitz's flagship, an impressive sight for most, but for the Master Chief and Cortana it was another day at the office.

"Impressive isn't she sir?" asked the pilot. The Master Chief moved up behind the pilot and took a good look.

"I've seen bigger," he said.

They entered one of the Iowa's four main hangar bays, two on each side of the heavily armed Fast Battleship, the entrances were recessed into the hull, heavy armour plating would slide over the entrances when not in use or in combat. The hangar bay was the personification of organized chaos, deck hands in Cyclops power-suits moving bulky equipment, marines stepping off Pelicans and various small craft coming in and out every few minutes, necessitating that the ground crews work quickly to get the new arrivals gear stowed away quickly.

Waiting for them was a young female lieutenant who had dark hair and a slender build, with a slight scowl on her face. The Master Chief saluted her and she saluted back.

"Welcome aboard the Iowa Master Chief, I am Lieutenant Jennifer Keyes, the Admirals aide; if you'll follow me please I will take you to him."

The Master Chief followed the young lieutenant through the long corridors; it was an almost new ship, being only a year old. She led him to the CIC, not saying a word to him. At the plotting table Admiral Nimitz was looking at the plot for their Slipspace jump to Wolf 359, he turned towards his aide and the Master Chief.

"Thank you Lieutenant that'll be all," he said, she saluted and exited at a brisk pace.

"Welcome aboard the Iowa you two, I see you've met my new aide," said Admiral Nimitz.

"What happened to your previous aide, Lieutenant Chang?" asked Cortana.

"He got himself promoted and is now the xo on a Forward class Frigate sniffing out Brute fleets, we'll be launching in an hour so get yourselves down to your quarters, and Surge here will show you the way."

"Please follow the Mouse droid," said Surge as a little black box on little wheels came trundling up to the Chief. The Navy had copied the Mouse Droids found in the Katana Fleet; they were very useful as guides, freeing up crewmembers to do more important tasks, they were also capable of making minor repairs to the different systems onboard. The Master Chief followed the little droid to his and Cortana's quarters. It was big; everything had been sized up for a Spartan, the furniture in particular. It was still standard UNSC quarters, but had definitely been made for housing Spartans.

"Cortana, did you know that Captain Keyes had another daughter?"

"Not at the time, I was just as surprised as you were, granted I hadn't read the Captains file that thoroughly, however I have been doing some research," she said before John yanked her out of her socket and plugged her into a nearby holo-tank. "You didn't have to yank me that hard John, that chip is very delicate," she admonished.

"Sorry, you were saying?"

She gave an unladylike snort and continued. "It would seem that she was born ten years before the end of the War, making her too young to join up, but she joined a few years ago, when she turned eighteen." She noticed the subtle change in his body language, saying that he was upset about something; to any normal human it wouldn't register, except perhaps doctor Halsey, but Cortana was a Smart AI, so she noticed everything.

"John what's troubling you?"

"I just feel I failed her twice over, I couldn't protect either her father, or her big sister and I returned relatively unscathed," he said painfully.

"I wouldn't call the condition you were in as relatively unscathed, hell you were lucky to just be alive, that woman is just angry that you returned and they didn't, and their deaths were completely beyond your control to prevent." She may be an AI, but she was created from the flash-cloned brain of Doctor Halsey, who felt a deep attachment to her Spartans, It was times like this that Cortana wished that she was human. She stood straight and walked off the holo-tank, seemingly touching down on the deck, then became human size, roughly the same dimensions as a young doctor Halsey. She walked over to the Chief as he sat there brooding in his armour on the bed. It had been strengthened to be able to take his weight with full armour on. She moved in behind him and took him in her embrace, she was still connected to his suit, so she could exercise some control over the suits systems, like John's skinsuit which could adapt to any environment by shrinking and expanding to keep the wearer in a comfortable one atmosphere pressure.

The Chief felt her 'embrace' and thought, _'Embrace, she shouldn't be able to do that, her avatar is just a three-dimensional image.'_ She saw him stiffen up and reassured him, "I'm only using your skinsuit as a replacement for the real thing, it's not the same but it will do."

The two of them sat there, Cortana's avatar embracing John from behind, giving comfort.

Meanwhile Lieutenant Jennifer Keyes was briskly walking back to her quarters in a rather foul mood. _'What was he doing here?'_ she asked herself when she first saw him, she then realized that he and the Smart AI that he carried around were the 'experts' that would be accompanying them. _'Some experts if they couldn't save my father and big sister,'_ she thought bitterly. She was so occupied in her own hate and emotional pain that she didn't notice the man in front of her until she ran into him and unceremoniously landed on her butt.

"Sorry ma'am didn't see you there," said the Lieutenant JG she ran into.

"It's alright, I wasn't paying attention," she said as the young Lieutenant lifted her up.

"Are hurt anywhere ma'am?"

"Just my pride," she said icily, and walked further down the corridor in an even fouler mood, more than earning the nickname Ice Queen.

Soon preparations were complete and the Battle Group making it calculations for jumping to Slipspace. Thanks to their Sangheili allies the UNSC got to look at and reverse engineer Covenant Slipspace drives for their own ships, making them faster than ever before, they had even improved upon the original Covenant drives, though they didn't share that little bit of information.

Admiral Nimitz admired his Battle Group as they moved as one entity, a well oiled machine. Their design followed the simple guidelines in the Navy, Form follows Function, and the ships under his command had one function, to be weapons of war. The ships AIs interconnected each individual ship, making a coordinated Slipspace Jump for maximum effectiveness, they were now on their way to Wolf 359, what secrets and mysteries would be found there, no one knew. What they did know was that they were as ready as they were going to be.

TBC

Hope you folks enjoyed this instalment of Sword of Change, please leave a review and give me your thoughts, constructive criticism is more than welcome.


	4. Chapter 3

**Sword of Change**

**Chapter 3**

The Wolf 359 system was one of the closest stars to Earth, explored as early as 2299 it was among the first star systems to be charted. Being only a small Red Dwarf it didn't have much in way of planets as Sol did, but it did have a large and chaotic asteroid field. It had two planets roughly the same size as Earth, but one was too close to be viable for terraforming, and the other was too far out, while having a breathable atmosphere, it was practically an oversized ice cube. It was orbited by a number of small moons, most of which were too small to create much of the same tidal forces as what made life possible on Earth, though even on this planet, life seemed to thrive. The rest of the dozen or so planets were just big chunks of rock, about one quarter the size of Earth, orbiting in between what would have been the 'Safe' Life Zone, but were just too small to maintain an atmosphere.

Just outside the inner ring of Asteroids surrounding the Red Dwarf several bright Slipspace Ruptures opened up, spilling forth the Iowa Battle Group. The super carrier Kitty Hawk launched a CAP of twelve fighters split up into flights of four, the rest of its air wings were placed on standby alert, ready for a quick launch if things got hot. The F715 Katana was the brand new space superiority starfighter for the UNSC. It had an angular hull reminiscent of the Longsword, but was considerably smaller than the Longsword. Made as a purpose built fighter/interceptor it had a two man crew, a pilot and RIO, radar intercept officer.

Joining them was an EW, Electronic Warfare, version of the C709 Longsword; most of its weaponry had been removed to fit a large and very advanced sensor suite, making it unable to carry its normal load of missiles. The Battle Group moved into a high orbit, sending down one of the flights of Katanas and the EW Longsword for a close range scan.

In the CIC of the Iowa Admiral Nimitz looked over the main plotting table/holo-tank, reviewing the disposition of his forces, glad that High Command had added the Kitty Hawk and the Olympic Voyager to his Battle Group, giving him a far better chance of defeating a possible Covenant Loyalist Fleet, both in space and on the ground. Cortana was in the system, going over the real time scans of the planet from the EW Longsword, seeing if the information she got from the Ark was correct about the planet. It was the correct size and position within the system, but the scans of the Longsword were only able to penetrate five or six kilometres down into the planet before hitting something that blocked a deeper scan.

"Well Cortana, is this the right planet?" asked Admiral Nimitz.

"I think so, but confirmation is going to be difficult, the readings from the EW Longsword are showing nothing below five or six kilometres below the surface, which makes me think that there is definitely something down there, sir."

"Only five or six kilometres?" the Admiral was surprised. "The sensor array of the EW Longsword is capable of penetrating the surface of a planet down to about twenty kilometres."

"Yes sir, which leads me to believe that this is most definitely the right planet."

"Very well, how do you suggest we find a way in, there isn't much to go on, except the information you got from the Ark."

"Allow me to broadcast the codes for opening one of the main entrances, that'll be our way in."

The Admiral thought it over for a while. "Wouldn't a Covenant ship be able to detect the transmission and recognize it?"

"Yes sir, but the transmission would be limited to this system, and if they were to pick up on it they would have to be within the system."

The Admiral nodded in reluctant approval, and Cortana got to work. She cycled through the many different subspace bands, trying to find the right frequency to transmit on. She got a return signal and directions to an entrance portal, but the portal would only open if a ship were directly over it.

"Sir, I have the location of an entrance portal, but we'd have to go down there if we were to enter the Shield World."

"Master Chief, get your team ready, looks like you're going in."

The Master Chief, who had been waiting patiently for Cortana to be finished behind the Admiral, pulled her chip and reinserted it back into his helmet. He then left the CIC; he could practically feel the burning eyes of Lieutenant Keyes on his back. He had tried to talk to the Lieutenant, but she had been dodging him, not wanting to see him at all outside of a professional setting and even then she gave him scalding looks.

"She doesn't like you very much," said Cortana in his head.

"I know."

"Well it's her problem, not yours so stay focused on the mission, and this should be a piece of cake."

"It will be, but only as long as nobody starts shooting at us."

"You're such a sourpuss, you know that," she said cheekily.

He made his way down to the squad bay where a squad of ODSTs were waiting for them. In charge was Master Sergeant Rick O'Brian, a veteran of the Covenant War and one of the best ODST snipers. The Master Chief had heard about this man, for a non-augmented human he was certainly a good sniper, but was not in the same league as Linda-058, who made being a sniper an art form. Everyone on this ten man ODST fire team took their seats, the Chief took the podium, removing his helmet and putting Cortana's chip into a slot on the podium.

"I am Master Chief Spartan John-117; I have been put in charge of this recovery mission, for mission details I leave it to Cortana to explain." He stepped off the podium and moved to the side. Cortana appeared in her usual purple and blue avatar, computer code and equations flowing all over her body.

"Right, let's get this show started. This planet is called a Shield World; it was built by the Forerunners as a safe haven from the HALO arrays, though this one is not just a haven, it is also a shipyard." She showed a schematic of the Shield world, a massive hollow sphere the size of a planet with an Earth-like environment on the interior surface, just as diverse as that on Earth from desserts to oceans to massive forests and open spaces of grassland. In the centre was an artificial star which provided sunlight and energy.

"We will transfer over to the Olympic Voyager and take her down into the Shield World and locate the Control Centre. We will take a Pelican dropship to a free floating platform, shouldn't be too difficult to find, then all we, that is to say I, have to do is open a portal and get everyone off the Forerunner Shield World of Onyx."

"Sounds simple, but what's the catch?" asked O'Brian.

"We will be against the clock, and if we fail we won't be able to open the portal again without activating one of the Halo arrays."

The room became very quiet. Ever since the end of the War the UNSC and the Sangheili had dedicated a large amount of resources to find and destroy as many of these doomsday devices as possible, but besides the Ark and the two Halo installations none had been found and destroyed so far.

The Master Chief went back up to the podium and took Cortana's chip out and slotted it back into his armour.

"You all heard Cortana, now if we are successful we will have brought back all of the surviving Spartan IIs and IIIs and Doctor Halsey, and as a bonus we gain access to a treasure trove of Forerunner technology, now gear up and move out."

The Team got their gear together and got aboard their Pelican Dropship. It was the latest evolution of the Pelican, the D80H-TCI. It was equipped with shields, improved armour and engines, though its weapon systems remained almost the same as the previous generation, its missile pods being upgraded to carry the Anvil III multi-purpose missiles.

The Pelican shot out of the Iowa and set a course for the Olympic Voyager where they got settled and Cortana provided a course into the atmosphere, directing them to an entrance portal at the Shield Worlds equator. Captain Marcus Fletcher, a beanpole of a man, was not really all that comfortable with the notion of taking his ship inside of a planet and possibly entering combat. John 117 was standing behind the captain on his bridge, just waiting for Cortana to send the signal that would open the proverbial 'garage door' for them.

The Olympic Voyager set its course down to the planet's surface. The wind buffeted the 2.5 kilometre long vessel, massive drifts of snow flying all over the place. It settled itself in a hovering position a hundred metres from the surface of a frozen lake. The crew was getting anxious; the wind was making it difficult for the Olympic Voyager to maintain its position and thick cloud cover and snow fall was making visibility practically zero.

"Sir, we will not be able to maintain our position for long," said Luna, the ship borne AI of the Olympic Voyager.

"Cortana you'd better hurry up or we will need to put down."

"I've got it," she said as a large crack appeared along the length of the frozen lake's surface, spilling forth a vast spout of water from beneath the ice, turning to ice almost immediately upon contact with the atmosphere. The crack widened and a pair of gigantic doors appeared. A long tunnel soon opened up beneath the Olympic Voyager, with no end seemingly in sight. An invisible force grabbed the Troop Ship and started dragging it down.

Captain Fletcher gave Cortana a very pointed look, expecting an answer from her promptly.

"It's just a guidance beam, it will help us manoeuvre through the main entrance, but it will be a very tight fit."

"Sir, we've got company," said a sensor operator. A number of Sentinels rose up to the Olympic Voyager, skimming along the hull and scanning them.

"The Sentinels are only scanning us for any sign of the Flood; they won't harm us, unless you have any Flood onboard and didn't tell us."

"Not that I am aware of, just tell me if there are going to be any more surprises."

"As soon as the door closes we won't be able to communicate with the Battle Group, we'll essentially be on our own."

"Perfect." _'This mission is just getting better.'_

The Guidance beam pulled the Olympic Voyager down into the great chasm that had opened up beneath it. They went down quickly, the doors sealed shut behind them the moment they were clear.

Back in orbit Admiral Nimitz could only watch as the Olympic Voyager disappeared beneath the ice and into the interior of the Shield World. They sent back the code for opening the entrance to the Iowa via encrypted data burst laser transmission so that they could open the doorway from the outside if they had to. He took only a couple of seconds thought for the brave men and women going down there, then focused on the job at hand, he had a planet to secure and not nearly enough ships to do it. Suddenly a large number of Slipspace Ruptures opened up a hundred thousand kilometres from them, the vessels that came out were ones that the Admiral was very familiar with.

"Admiral, Covenant warships just came out of Slipspace just outside weapons range, they're charging weapons," called out a sensor officer.

"All hands man battle stations, I repeat man battle stations, this is not a drill," Surge called over the intercom, the lights turning from normal illumination to combat blue. Everyone was rushing to their assigned duty stations, weapons control was manned fully, medics were issued their medical gear and Marines took up positions in all the sensitive areas of the ship ready to repel boarders, a favourite tactic of the Covenant was to board enemy ships to capture crew and possible the ship borne AI.

"Incoming ordinance, shields up," said the weapons officer.

The Covenant Loyalist Task Force had unleashed a barrage of Plasma Torpedoes at them, flying gracefully from the dorsal mounted torpedo tubes, guided by a magnetic steering field. They were met with no resistance and hit all across the Iowa Battle Group, not a single ship was spared a hit from a Plasma Torpedo, hitting with incredible force, and no less than ten of them hit the Iowa, obscuring the view of them from the Covenant Loyalist Fleet and the Prophet of Retribution.

He was sitting in his hover throne on the bridge of his flagship, the Assault Carrier Fires of Retribution, pointed teeth showing a truly gruesome smile as he watched the UNSC Navy Battle Group vanish in a vast deluge of Plasma fire.

"Targets destroyed Prophet, the heretics are no more," said the Brute Chieftain Molok, a silver backed Brute in full armour, his Gravity Hammer at his side. "The plan worked, just as you predicted." He bowed to the Prophet, happy to have been of service to the last voice of the Gods.

"Yes, just as I predicted, the humans are weak and pathetic, it was only because of the betrayal by the Sangheili that they were able to survive, and this was just the first of many such attacks, with this fleet we will cleanse the universe of all heretics." The Prophet grinned even more widely, he would have his revenge upon all who had betrayed the Prophets and the Humans would finally be extinguished.

"My lord, the enemy Fleet survived," said a Grunt rating who got kicked across the bridge for his trouble by Molok and the grin quickly fell from the Prophets face. A thin golden energy barrier hugged the hulls of the Battle Group, their shields, further developed from the energy shields installed on the Mjolnir Mk VI Assault Armour, had held against the plasma torpedoes. Now it was their turn to feel the burn. A wave of Longbow fusion missiles were launched, quickly reaching relativistic speeds, thanks to the speed boost from the magnetic rail launchers, their ion rocket motors burning a bright blue. Most of the missile fire had been concentrated on the Covenant Destroyers and Frigates, their shields being the least powerful they were the first to be destroyed. Hundreds of missiles slammed into them, quickly wearing them down faster than the old Archer missiles and they were too quick for their PDLs to intercept. The shields of the Frigates were brought down and the Longbows pummelled their weak hulls, smashing them to pieces. The Destroyers managed to hold out and survive the barrage, having a lot more PDLs they simply fired them en masse, destroying enough of them to make a difference, though their shields were severely weakened.

"Most of the enemy Frigates have been destroyed sir, MAC guns at 90% charge, ten seconds to firing," reported the tactical officer. "Numbers on enemy fleet coming in now, one Covenant Assault Carrier, ten CCS class Battle cruisers, thirty Destroyers and all but ten of the enemy frigates were destroyed sir."

"Surge, how did our shields fare?"

"The new shields held sir and far better than any Covenant shield would have under that barrage."

"I thought so too. Engines ahead two thirds keep our formation tight, but not too tight, I want everyone's line of fire clear and overlapping fields of fire, let's make it a true firestorm for any Seraphs that get through."

"Aye sir, relaying orders to the rest of the Battle Group," responded Surge.

The Battle Group moved forward as one, seconds later great silver bullets were fired from their MAC guns, accelerated to 60% of the speed of light. The rounds ranged in size and mass from the 600 ton standard rounds to the massive 1200 ton rounds of the Iowa and Kitty Hawk, the acceleration of the Battle Group added speed to the rounds. The guns themselves were updated versions of the system pioneered on the Pillar of Autumn, so seconds later another shot was fired from each of the 600 ton guns. The 1200 ton rounds were just too heavy for the 1200 ton MAC guns to fire consecutive shots, the capacitors were drained far too much for another round to be fired.

The first rounds took out ten of the Covenant Destroyers shields; the 1200 ton rounds blasted clean through two of them, and destroyed eight Frigates even with their shields at full strength. The second shots took out the now unshielded Destroyers, blasting them all to hell and claimed the remaining Frigates. The remaining Destroyers moved closer to the Assault Carrier and Battlecruisers, hoping that their heavier firepower would shield them from further harm. The Assault Carrier and Battlecruisers launched their Seraph fighters in a huge wave, a thousand fighters in total. The Battle Group responded with launching every last fighter they had from the Iowa, Kitty Hawk and the two Marathons, the Frigates and Destroyers didn't carry fighters. In total three hundred F715 Katana class Space Superiority fighters were launched, the C709 Longsword fighter/bombers were set to hot standby.

The two fighter groups closed in, Lieutenant Commander Christopher 'Maverick' Blair led his squadron, the Crimson Knights, towards the enemy.

"Man, this is crazy, three hundred fighters against a thousand, we're doomed aren't we," said his RIO, Lieutenant Zoe 'Skates' Stiles, this was her first combat mission.

"Don't count us out just yet." He changed the frequency to the squadron frequency. "All Crimson Knights, listen up. We may be outnumbered, but we are most definitely not outgunned. Release safeties on all missiles and prepare launch on my order." He switched back to the internal frequency. "Skates arm the Phoenixes, let's thin out this crowd."

"Aye sir, missile safeties are off, you can shoot them any time."

"Thank you Skates." He returned to the squadron frequency. "Crimson 1, Fox 3, Fox 3," he called out, dropping two Phoenix long range missiles from the internal missile bay, their ion rocket motors accelerating them to 40% of light speed in seconds and continued to accelerate. They closed in and when they reached two hundred kilometres from their targets the panels blew off and five smaller missiles screamed their way towards the approaching Seraphs, catching them completely by surprise. They had expected the old fashioned missiles that the Longswords used, not six hundred missiles turn into three thousand. The missiles were small but effective, taking two missile hits to get a kill on a Seraph, one to down their shields, the second obliterated them. The Seraphs at the front were all obliterated, though a good portion of the ones that brought up the rear of the formation survived. They were furious, having watched their comrades die right in front of them. They gunned their engines and accelerated towards the F715s, intent upon avenging their comrades.

The Katanas were now only outnumbered by two to one, far better odds than before. They closed in to proverbial knife fighting range, turning into a huge fur ball. This is where the Seraphs got their second surprise; the Katanas were shielded, improving their survivability considerably.

Maverick closed in on a pair, his wing man, Lieutenant Julia 'Lobo' Painter, covered his six. He launched a Sidewinder and caught one of them straight in the face, the other he got behind of and blew the offensive Seraph out of the sky with his rotary Gauss guns. Lobo meanwhile bagged a pair of Seraphs that was just about to cut across Mavericks tail with their Pulse Lasers.

"Thanks for the save, Lobo."

"Any time Maverick."

The two of them made their way through the fur ball, using their speed and manoeuvrability to counter the Seraphs numbers. The one real advantage that human pilots had over Brute pilots was superior teamwork. They paired up and went after individual fighters and kill scores were going way up, the team work of the Navy pilots showed to be far superior to any Brute tactic, for as their name implies, the Brutes tactics and strategy were more brawn than brain.

The Assault Carrier and the Battlecruisers then opened fire with their Energy Projectors, taking down the shields of two Iroquois class Destroyers and destroyed three Forward class Frigates, their power-plants didn't have the power generating capabilities of the more powerful Destroyers.

"Admiral, we just lost the Frigates Foxfire, Rising Sun and Star Fire, the Destroyers Reuben James and Decatur has lost their shields and are withdrawing from the field," reported Surge.

"I wondered when their Energy Projectors would come into play. Order the Longswords to commence their attack runs; the Kitty Hawk's CAG will coordinate the attack."

"Aye sir," said Surge as he relayed the orders to the Kitty Hawk's AI, who again relayed it to the ships CAG. Captain Thomas Boone, the Kitty Hawks CAG, got on the com to the aircrews.

"All Longswords prepare for immediate launch, prep them for anti-ship anti-fighter combat that is all."

He took a good long look at the tactical holo-tank, watching as the fight between the Katanas and the Seraphs developed from a fur ball into a rout. He sure wished he had those fighters during the war. The ship's captain, Captain James Ellis, stood near the CAG as he gave the orders, seeing the look of longing on his face as he wished he could be out there. Unfortunately he was needed here in the CIC, to coordinate the fighter squadrons.

"You still miss it, don't you?"

"You know me skipper; my first love will always be flying, especially combat missions."

"Well you'll just have to get used to the fact that the youngsters are the ones that are flying out there, it's their time to shine."

They returned their eyes to the tactical holo-tank, watching seventy two small blue arrows race away from the small hologram of the Kitty Hawk. On the launch deck C709 Longswords were prepped and led to the half kilometre long magnetic launch rails, twelve of them lined side by side along the entire width of the launch deck. Their engines revved up and blast shields were raised to protect the fighters behind them. The launch rails charged up and three yellow lights blinked on and turned green. Launch rail one fired and sent its Longsword charging down the launch deck and off the ship in the blink of an eye, followed shortly by eleven more Longswords. In seconds an entire squadron was launched and heading on their attack runs for the Covenant Fleet. Shortly after five more Longsword squadrons followed suit.

They set their engines to full burn and raced past the still raging fur ball. There were still a number of Seraphs staying close to the main body of their fleet, ready to intercept anything that tried to get past them. The Longswords launched their own, larger, Phoenix missiles, taking out most of them before they could react, then took evasive action as Point Defence Lasers opened up on them, hitting a few of the Longswords, but most managed to get through. They made a run for the Battlecruisers, dropping several nuclear tipped missiles from their internal missile bays, heading straight for six of the Battlecruisers, one squadron per ship. The missiles flew fast through the PDL fire, none of them got shot down. In quick succession one after another the nukes hit and detonated against the Battlecruisers shields, burning them with ten megatons of energy and hard nuclear radiation. One of them had taken a direct hit from a pair MAC guns from the Destroyer Iwo Jima, their shields were low and the nukes did the rest, bringing down the shields then two of them penetrated the hull and detonated inside, destroying the Battlecruiser.

The Longswords raced away from the explosions, going as fast as they could to avoid the explosions and the debris they threw around. The pilots were practically feeling the heat, hoping that their shields would protect them from the hard radiation. The five surviving Battlecruisers then unleashed their Energy Projectors on the Kitty Hawk dropping their shields down to forty percent; some of the energy bled through the shields and impacted the heavy Titanium-A Battle Plating.

The Prophet of Retribution was starting to get more and more frustrated. _'Why can't these damned humans just die already,' _he thought as another pair of Destroyers blew up, this time by a duo of human Destroyers firing their double MAC guns.

"All ahead full, set a course for the planet's surface, we will enter it along with two of our Battlecruisers and secure it, and the rest will stay in orbit and keep the human Fleet at bay. It is time we took possession of what is rightfully ours."

The orders were quickly obeyed; the Covenant Loyalists surged forward, forcing the Battle Group to take evasive action to avoid becoming proverbial road kill. They collided with a few of the human Frigates, their small mass was nothing in comparison to the Covenant ships that came through them, the collisions put only a slight strain on their shields. As they passed close by the AIs of the individual human ships took control of fire control for the Gauss cannon batteries, the Frigates and Destroyers used double barrelled batteries while the big capital ships had the big triple barrelled batteries. Twelve ton slugs were quickly fired from the Gauss Batteries, accelerated to 70% of the speed of light, pummelling the Covenant Fleets shields and downing another pair of Destroyers and a Battlecruiser, their hulls in flames. It was however not enough to stop Retributions Fleet gaining orbital control and sending ships down to the planet.

The Fires of Retribution, two Battlecruisers and five Destroyers made their way through the atmosphere and opened up an entrance portal on the opposite side of the planet where the Olympic Voyager entered.

Admiral Nimitz was surprised at the actions of the Covenant, they had just blown right through them, forcing his ships to move aside to avoid being run over.

"What the hell are they thinking, Helm, take us after them, we can't allow them to land on the Shield World."

"Sir, eight of their ships are heading towards the surface and have opened up an entrance portal, they're going through. The rest are blocking our way," Surge reported.

"Damn, I guess they'll have to fend for themselves down there. Surge, send to all ships, target the enemy Fleet with everything we've got, time on target."

"Aye sir," said Surge then sent the orders over the Battle Groups Battle net. "All ships time on target, fire for effect, all weapons.

The Battle Group went after the Covenant Loyalists, relentlessly pounding their shields with every MAC gun, Gauss Battery and Longbow missile. The humans were pissed and wanted to take several pounds of flesh from their enemy. The Battle Group now concentrated their fire on one ship at a time. Longbow anti-ship missiles continued to be launched at the Covenant Destroyers, slowly killing them, while the MAC and Gauss Cannons were focussed on the Battlecruisers left in orbit. Without guidance from their leaders to coordinate their fire the Brute controlled Battlecruisers and Destroyers were soon destroyed, leaving nothing more than burning debris.

Admiral Nimitz took stock of the situation. A Covenant Assault Carrier carried a large contingent of ground forces as standard and the forces on the Battlecruisers and Destroyers would further complicate matters for the forces on the ground.

"Communications open up a channel to Fleet HQ on Earth; I need to speak to High Command."

The Communications officer nodded and got to work. Admiral Nimitz knew he was going to be grilled for not being able to stop the Covenant Fleet from landing on the Shield World, despite having destroyed their Fleet. However he knew that the ground forces he had deployed to the Shield World were going to need reinforcements and a Forerunner Relic was just too important, it had to be kept away from the Prophets and Brutes grimy hands.

He just hoped that the reinforcements came in time.

AN: How'd you folks like that? Enough boom for your buck?

I hope you folks enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it, please leave a review and give me your thoughts, good or bad, as long as its constructive criticism. Flamers are ignored.


	5. Chapter 4

**Sword of Change**

**Chapter 4**

The pull of the invisible Guidance Beam was very powerful, dragging down the 2.5 kilometre long Olympic Voyager, even with her engines at full power she was unable to break free. Captain Fletcher was soon forced to put the engines on idle or risk burning them out. He had no choice but to allow his ship to be pulled down into the interior of the Shield World. The first five kilometres was just simply a very wide hexagonal tunnel, the only sources of light for a few seconds were the small headlights of the Sentinels scanning the ship with highly advanced scanners, searching for any sign of Flood Infection. The Olympics' floodlights came on, illuminating the tunnel as bright as day, though for the moment there wasn't much to see except for the long tunnel.

They continued on down the 'Rabbit Hole' for a few more minutes then came to a vast open space, ten kilometres wide it was a like a void between two different layers of an onion. Tall buildings, taller than the tallest skyscrapers on Earth, jutted out from the two layers, Cortana identified them as piers for Forerunner Warships. This section was only a small part of the vast planet sized complex that made up the Shield World. They continued on their way through another tunnel, still in the powerful Guidance Beams strong grip. A light appeared at the end of the tunnel after another ten kilometres, they were about to enter the interior of the Shield World.

"Captain, I suggest we power up the engines, if we don't we may end up crashing on the interior surface," suggested Luna.

"Agreed, bring us into hover mode, then deploy the Pods, we'll set up firebases close by the entrances, Colonel Franklin you'll handle that."

The big African American Colonel merely nodded his assent and got to work. He had the number of entrances into the Shield World from Cortana before they had even set out on this mission.

There were two main entrances, which were more than big enough to admit an Assault Carrier, which they just flew through, and dozens of smaller entrances which were, for the moment, sealed. The Olympic Voyager raced out of the tunnel, flying fast enough to escape the gravity of the interior surface for a short time. They soared a kilometre into the air, then began to descend, the only thing stopping the troopship from crashing on the surface was the ships antigravity engines, while not quite powerful enough for high speed atmospheric flight on their own, they were very useful for bringing ships of all sizes into a hover.

"Master Chief, get your team onboard your Pelican, find that control Centre and get control of this facility."

"Aye sir," said the Chief as he pulled out Cortana's chip from the holo-tank. He moved swiftly off the bridge to the Starboard Pelican launch bay where his team was waiting. He boarded the Pelican and took a standing position behind the cockpit, like he usually did; the seats just didn't have the strength to take a Spartan in full Mjolnir Assault Armour. The Pelican launch bay was one of two such bays on the Olympic Voyager, one on each side. Each housed twenty Pelican Dropships, in two rows of ten they hung suspended over the launch bay doors, just waiting for the order to drop. The doors underneath the Master Chief's Pelican opened up and the clamps released, dropping the Pelican down into the interior of the Shield World, followed by a pair of Sparrowhawk Fast Attack gunships, which had an elongated fuselage, a pair of stubby wings with a pair of Ducted Air fans built into the rear of the wings and a powerful ion thrust engine built into the top of the gunship for high speed pursuit.

They flew high above the clouds, following Cortana's lead to the floating platform which housed the main control console for the Shield World. Flying as if time was of the essence they reached the platform in record time. It was roughly fifty meters long with what looked to be some sort of landing pad on one end with a small structure on the edge, a thin section with overbearing arches like a bridge, the other end was smaller than the landing pad, but had a domed structure with a small entrance facing the bridge.

Surrounding them on all sides were what appeared to be tall free floating structures, bearing a slight resemblance to an Ankh. As they flew in Cortana told the Chief what they were.

"Those are Forerunner Warships, built during their war with the Flood; they are centuries, possibly millennia ahead of us in technology."

"You think that they may be worth salvaging?

"Quite possibly, but it would take time to learn their secrets. It would most likely take centuries before Humanity learns how to properly control and replicate the technology."

"Then let's concentrate on the present, are you sure that this will work?"

"Yes John, it will work, unless something catastrophic happens."

"Great," John wasn't as confident as Cortana was, having been on enough missions to know that nothing ever goes exactly as planned.

The Pelican landed on the Pad, the ODSTs taking up positions and checking the platform for any hostiles. Finding none they began setting up some defences, bringing out several M19-B SAM launchers, and a few M41 AA guns, just in case the Covenant came knocking. They would soon find out that their preparations were going to pay off handsomely. The Master Chief went into the domed building, looking over the various consoles, a sense of déjà vu came over him, as if he had been here before, but he chalked it up to his experiences on other Forerunner Installations.

He hesitated before the main control console, not quite willing to send his long time partner into danger again, especially into such an old computer system.

"John, I know that last time we dealt with a Forerunner Installation it almost killed us, but you still have to touch that console if I'm going to upload myself into the mainframe and take control of this facility."

"Can't you just tell me what to do and I'll open the portal, how hard could it be?"

"It's not that simple, the portal won't be big enough for anyone to walk through so at the same time I would have to activate the Teleportation system to bring them out, and since I'm the one with the most experience on these sorts of systems I should be the one to do it."

With an inaudible sigh the Master Chief touched the console and with a slight blue flicker of energy she transferred herself into the Shield Worlds mainframe, infiltrating and systematically scanning it, searching for any and all information on this structure and how it operates. It wouldn't be long before she had control of the entire Shield World.

Meanwhile Covenant Forces had broken through the Iowa Battle Group to the Shield World and at this very moment the massive forms of the Assault Carrier Fires of Retribution, two CCS Battlecruisers and five Covenant Destroyers, were coming down through the second primary entrance to the Shield World. Spotted quickly by one or the recon UAVs launched by the Olympic Voyager the alarm was sounded.

"What's going on?" asked Captain Fletcher, never liking surprises, especially surprise 'visitors.'

"We have incoming hostile ships approaching; looks like an Assault Carrier, two CCS class Battlecruisers and five Destroyers."

"Helm, move us as far away as you can from the enemy, but keep us in a line of sight for the MAC gun."

The helm officer nodded and expertly piloted the 2.5 kilometre ship away from the enemy. As the Olympic Voyager was manoeuvring away from the enemy fleet a large number of Seraphs and Banshees were quickly approaching them, they had been spotted.

"Sir, enemy fighters closing in fast, Banshees and Seraphs, time to intercept, five minutes," a sensor tech reported.

"CAG, you'd better get your aircraft in the air," said the Captain to the ships CAG, Michael Moore down in the CIC. Two minutes later several squadrons of Skyhawk attack fighters were launched, moving to intercept Covenant forces. In total eight squadrons were launched from the topside hangar bay of the Olympic Voyager, the ship's complement of Shortswords were also readied for launch, armed to the teeth with mostly ground attack munitions.

The Skyhawks intercepted the Covenant air forces, launching their pairs of Phoenix cluster missiles. Launched from their magnetic rails they accelerated to mach ten, reaching deployment range in seconds, panels blew off and five missiles split off from their carrier vehicle, leaving behind an empty husk. The Seraphs stood no chance against the Phoenix missile strikes, being terrible fighters in an atmospheric environment. The Banshees however were able to outmanoeuvre the missiles for the most part; several were shot down but most survived. The Skyhawks closed in and launch another wave of missiles, this time short ranged Sidewinders, blowing several Banshees out of the sky. They flew past the Banshees at mach 2, their first attack run on the Covenant fighters successful. Executing tight 7G turns they made another run for the Banshees, this time with both Sidewinders and 50 millimetre guns, shredding them and sending all of them crashing to the ground, none of their Brute pilots survived.

Captain Fletcher was slightly surprised that the enemy had not attacked them with any of their heavy weaponry, like a Plasma Torpedo or an Energy Projector strike. He then realised that they wanted to keep this facility intact as much as possible and a burning wreck of a big warship, like a Destroyer or bigger may cause irreparable damage to the Shield World.

"Luna, has the Covenant begun landing their troops yet?"

"Yes sir, they are heading for a Forerunner Teleportation site." She showed him the site on the holo-tank. Covenant Loyalist forces were closing in on the site, Phantoms were dropping off dozens of troops and tons of armour at a time and Banshees were flying top cover. There were thousands of Grunts down there now, all miserable and waiting for death, being more afraid of what their Brute masters would do to them if they failed.

"Is this the only sight where they have landed troops?" questioned Captain Fletcher.

"Yes sir, reading over five thousand Grunts and Jackals, and hundreds of Brutes."

"Colonel Franklin, I believe you know what to do?"

"Yes Captain," said the heavy Colonel. He had been in the process of setting up a Firebase very close to the mouth of the second entrance, the other one guarding the entrance they came through.

"Major, make ready to change our heading, set us down here." He pointed down to a position on the map projected in the holo-tank on the bridge of the lead Landing Pod, three kilometres away from the enemy. "We will attack as soon as we land, deploy our artillery. Captain Fletcher, I'd be grateful if you could deploy your Shortswords for a few bombing runs."

"You'll have them Colonel, Godspeed." Captain went off the channel, only the normal com chatter remained.

The Landing Pods changed their course; the entrance they were headed for was now guarded by two of the five Covenant Destroyers. They landed three kilometres away from the Teleportation site and deposited their cargo of prefabricated buildings, the beginnings of a TA Marine Corp Fire Base. Soon the main building, barracks, generator building and motor-pool were all set up. Minutes later several squadrons of Pelican Dropships and a small number of Albatross Heavy Dropships flew over the base, depositing eight Marine Infantry Battalions and four Armoured Battalions, consisting of mostly Scorpion II MBTs and a small number of Grizzly HBTs, Heavy Battle Tanks, as well as several SP42 Cobras, a mobile artillery weapons platform armed with a pair of artillery railguns.

They rolled off their transports and proceeded to do battle, tanks formed battle lines and Cobras took up position behind the formation, preparing to lend heavy fire support. Charging ahead of the tanks were several Warthogs, racing at 125 mph, they arrived first at the Covenant Loyalists position. The Warthogs gunners fired their turret mounted chain guns, mowing down dozens of Grunts in seconds. They circled around them, corralling them in one place. A few were armed with Gauss Cannons, destroying some of the light Covenant Armour, like the Ghost recon vehicles and the few Banshees that still flew.

Next the Scorpion IIs and Grizzlies blew apart the Covenant Wraith tanks with their own 90 millimetre and 120 millimetre high velocity guns, their own mounted chain guns ripping into the Covenant lines of Grunts, Jackals and the Brutes that commanded them. It was a bloodbath, the combined arms doctrine at its most effective. The Cobras then opened up with their artillery Rail guns, heavy explosive shells dropped on the Covenant Loyalists, the shells detonated twenty meters from the ground, and shrapnel from the shells shredded hundreds of troops. Flying at treetop height a number of Shortsword bombers came in, dropping bombs on the Covenant army, further reducing their numbers. Soon the numbers advantage fell from the Covenant Loyalists and the few surviving Grunts and Jackals tried to surrender to the Humans, but the Brutes would have none of that, killing the few voices that stood up to them. This was soon stopped by Marine Snipers, taking out the Brute Commanders with their Sniper Rifles from the top of a nearby hill. Soon there were no more Brutes on the ground left standing, and the surviving Grunts and Jackals surrendered.

In the Command Centre Colonel Franklin heard the news that the Teleportation Site had been taken and the Marines were quickly digging in.

"Major, get the Olympic Voyager on the line, tell him we're going to need some help with moving the Fire Base."

"Aye sir," replied the Major and got the ship on the com line, making the requisition for the ships Landing Pods to pick up the prefab building. Within minutes the Fire Base was picked up by the Pods and deposited right next to the Teleportation Site, setting up their own batteries of fixed artillery and pill boxes. If the Covenant Loyalists were going to try to take the site they were going to have to fight them for it, and they would get more than just a bloody nose in the attempt.

Meanwhile onboard the Covenant Loyalist Flagship the Prophet of Retribution was seething in rage, his ground forces had failed to gain control of the Forerunner Teleportation Site, leaving him with only one option, to send troops up to the free floating Control Platform in vulnerable Phantoms where they ran the risk of being shot down by Human Fighters.

"Molok, take what warriors you can to the Control Centre, seize it and take control of the installation, and try to capture a human, you will need one to initialize the system and gain access to it. I will join you shortly after you have secured it."

"It will be done, Prophet," the Silver backed Brute Chieftain said, Gravity Hammer in hand and a Spiker at his side.

He walked out of the Command Bridge and headed towards one of the Ship's primary launch bays where his Phantom was waiting for him, along with twenty of his best Brute Warriors under his command, all of them were bloodthirsty and ready to tear apart anything that got in their way. The Phantom and several others like it carrying Grunts and Jackals, along with dozens of Banshees lifted off the deck and took off, heading straight to the Control Platform.

On the Control Platform things were starting to get interesting. The Forerunner ships docked with the Dry Docks had been released from their moorings and were now just floating there serenely. O'Brian looked on with a curious eye, hoping that those ships were on their side. Next a sound came that he hadn't heard in a while, the distinctive sound of Covenant Banshees and Phantoms closing in on them.

"**Incoming**." He called out as soon as his mind recognised the sound for what it was. The men got on the portable Gauss Cannon and Chain Gun Turrets, while several others brought out shoulder mounted M19-B SAM launchers to bear. As soon as the Banshees and Phantoms got within visual range the Marines with launchers called out, "Clear behind," and seconds later several SAMs flew off the launchers and streaked off towards their intended victims. Multiple Brute piloted Banshees were eliminated, smashing into their thinly armoured hides and breaching their power cores, lighting up the sky like tiny suns, buffeting other Banshees and the Phantoms they were escorting.

The Phantoms simply shrugged off the missile impacts, their hull hugging shields protecting them from harm. Molok allowed a very satisfied smile, knowing that the Humans were powerless to stop him from landing on that platform, and he relished the opportunity that he had been given to personally tear apart a few Humans himself, perhaps even feast upon a couple whose flesh hadn't been completely ruined. He so loved the taste of Human flesh.

"Target the damned Phantoms, don't let them land their troops," shouted O'Brian as the Gauss Cannons and Chain Guns opened up. The Chain Guns tore apart a few more Banshees and relentlessly fired at the Phantoms, but their bullets just didn't have the stopping power of a Gauss Cannon. The short thump, thump, thump of the Gauss Cannons sounded, wearing down the Phantoms shields, concentrated fire from three of them managed to bring down one of the Phantoms, but there were still ten more and they were closing fast. The Pelican Drop Ship and the two Sparrowhawk gunships quickly lifted off and engaged the remaining Phantoms and Banshees.

They unleashed a wave of missiles, taking out most of the surviving Banshees. The Pelican's nose mounted rotary gauss cannon tore apart another Phantom and the Hawks' took out a Phantom each with their chin mounted Spartan Lasers, burning through their shields and coring straight through their thin armour.

Seven Phantoms managed to get past, landing their troops on the platform, twenty Brutes and several more Grunts jumped off of them, landing on a few hapless Marines that were supporting the ODSTs. An ODST picked up a Chain Gun and unleashed a hail of bullets, bringing the shields of a Brute down in a second then tore the unlucky Brute to shreds along with most of the Grunts that had accompanied them. Another, this time a Marine, picked up a Gauss Cannon and fired, blasting an ugly Brute away and over the edge of the platform, screaming in rage all the way. The ODSTs and Marines brought their weapons to bear, mostly the new MA5D Assault Rifles, a few had M90 shotguns and used them, blasting away at the Brutes, quickly bringing down their shields and since they were so close the Marines got, more often than not, headshots, blowing the Brutes brains out all over the place.

Hearing the weapons fire the Master Chief came out of the control Centre, raised his Assault Rifle and let loose a fury of high speed projectiles, taking down three Brutes in quick succession. The Silver backed Brute Chieftain watched as the Master Chief killed more of its kind, and made a grab for his Spiker, firing several superheated shots at the Spartan II. John quickly sidestepped the shots and returned fire, his bullets kinetic energy absorbed by Molok's armour shields with very little difficulty, though the impacts did make him stagger. Molok let out a terrifying roar, swinging his Gravity Hammer around himself, crushing and knocking several Marines off the platform. He then made a charge for the Master Chief; Gravity Hammer raised high for an overhead strike. John jumped back out of range, aiming his Assault Rifle in mid-jump, letting loose another hail of bullets at the Brute Chieftains head. Molok's shields held for a while, but as the last bullet impacted his shield shorted out. He swung his Gravity Hammer again and again, denting the metal surface of the platform. John closed the distance with the Brute, running as fast as he could and punched Molok in the stomach, making him puke his guts out, which just made him angrier. He swung his hammer again, only hitting the deck plate. John got up close and personal with Molok again, this time punching the Brute where, if he were human, his kidneys were located, followed by a hit to the head with his armoured elbow, cracking the Chieftains helmet and rupturing several blood vessels behind his left eye, turning it red. John followed up with a roundhouse kick, again to the head, dazing Molok even further, and staggering back towards the platforms edge. A loud shot rang out, red blood spewed out of Molok's head from a pair of recently made holes. John followed the shot's contrail to Master Sergeant O'Brian's Sniper rifle who gave a very satisfied smile as he watched Molok's lifeless corpse fall off the platform and down to the surface.

The Chieftain was the last of the Brutes on the platform to die, and seeing him fall made the Grunts realise they now had a chance to survive. They threw down their weapons and in their squeaky bark-like language they surrendered to the humans, trying desperately to make them understand. Seeing their actions O'Brian called out, "Cease fire, they're surrendering."

The ODSTs and Marines ceased fire, but still kept their weapons trained on their new prisoners.

"Bring them to the Teleporter," said the Master Chief. "The Firebase on the surface can deal with them."

The new prisoners were herded onto the teleportation platform and sent down to the surface where they were greeted by several Marines that were waiting for their arrival. John went back to the Control Centre to check up on Cortana.

"How're you doing Cortana?"

Her avatar appeared in larger than life form above the main control console, her face looking like the spirit of mischief itself. er H"Oh, just peachy John, nice work out there by the way," she complimented. "Too bad you didn't get in the last shot." She said the last rather cheekily. John ignored the comment and decided to get more details from her.

"Have you gotten control over this 'installation' yet?"

"Almost, I've got control of the ships and internal defence systems, and I've started on getting the portal to Onyx charged up, but it's going to be a while before its open." She got a faraway look upon her face for a second, and then a look of dread fell as new information came in from the Shield Worlds many sensors.

"Oh no, that dirty rat bastard," she said, both angry and terrified.

"What's going on Cortana?"

"The Covenant warships are targeting the Forerunner fleet in dock and the Shield World itself, they're going to destroy it."

"Spartan 117 to Olympic Voyager we've got a situation developing here," he called out on his helmet com.

"What is it Spartan," responded Captain Fletcher.

"The Covenant has decided that if they can't have this place no one will, they're targeting the Shield World itself."

"We're on it, just sit tight."

"Sit tight? Captain those ships will be able to fire within seconds, you won't be able to get any kind of reinforcements down here in time, however I may be able to do something about those ships."

"What do you have in mind Cortana?"

"I have control of the Shield Worlds internal defences, permission to use them?"

"Granted Cortana," Captain Fletcher hoped that Cortana knew what she was doing.

Onboard his flagship the Prophet of Retribution was seething in rage, his Brutes had failed to secure the Forerunner relic, most of his fleet had been destroyed and he had lost his entire complement of ground troops to these thrice cursed humans. Now he had only had one option left. Destroy this Holy Relic, himself and everyone on it, even the Human Battle Group in orbit.

"All weapons, target the Forerunner Relic Fleet, destroy every last one of those ships."

Plasma Torpedo tubes opened up as Energy Projectors charged, their first target was the Forerunner Fleet still in dock. As one they fired, unleashing a terrible wave of destructive plasma directly at them. The Energy Projectors cored their way through three ships each, and continued on and impacted the surface of the Shield World, scoring deep holes into it. Next came the Plasma Torpedoes, which impacted repeatedly upon their thick armour. Since they were still locked in docking mode their shields were offline, Cortana had control over them, but the attack was so sudden she was unable to do anything before they were under fire. More and more of them fell under the Plasma barrage, falling down to the surface, creating massive tremors on the surface as they impacted. Cortana managed to get two of the free floating docking piers and the four ships previously docked with them to raise their shields in time, but not before they too suffered some damage, though it was only glancing blows.

Cortana instructed their AIs to activate their weapon systems and target the Covenant warships, at the same time she activated the internal defence systems of the Shield World itself. Massive machines rose up from hangars buried into the surface, looking like oversized Sentinels with two large Plasma Beam cannons on the arms. The Forerunner Warships got into an attack formation, energy beams connected them together then six beams converged at a single point ahead of them, then fired. The controlled plasma energy blast vaporized the Fires of Retribution in a matter of seconds, ending the rule of the Prophet of Retribution and his mad dreams of revenge. The Super Sentinels then added their firepower to the mix, destroying the Battlecruisers and Destroyers in seconds their shields were no match for the firepower that Cortana had unleashed upon them.

Watching from the Control Centre the Master Chief was just stunned, seeing those Covenant warships wiped out in seconds was just breath taking. All those years that the UNSC had been fighting the Covenant they never had it this easy. It was the Covenant that usually came out on top, burning their fleets and armies away as if they were nothing more than cockroaches.

He turned to Cortana, seeing her with that faraway look again as she concentrated on the tasks at hand. She went back to her usual self and graced the Master Chief with a shit eating grin.

"Am I good or am I good."

"Nice work Cortana, now how about bringing our people home?"

"Already on it Chief, the Portal will open in less than a minute."

On the surface several miles away a huge half-circular arch arose from the ground, covered in Forerunner glyphs that glowed blue a bluish haze started to form, like a thin film of see-through silk, but fizzled with energy. As soon as it stood up straight the portal changed to a bright sheen for a few seconds, a short burst of energy connected the portal to the Platform, then it just shut down, all the glowing glyphs went dark and the arch lowered itself down to the ground. On the Platform several figures had materialized on the Teleportation Pad, a rather shocked looking man in the uniform of a UNSC Senior Chief Petty Officer, a woman in slightly dishevelled civilian clothing, and eight more people in armour. Five had customized SPI armour with bubble like helmets, while the three others had MK VI Mjolnir Assault Armour, similar to what the Chief wore. There were also five three meter long capsules containing more soldiers in SPI armour.

The armoured soldiers began to raise their weapons at the Marines and ODSTs when the Master Chief came out of the Control Centre. As the armoured soldiers released the safeties on their weapons he began to whistle a tune that immediately made all of the newcomers take notice. They all stopped mid-motion and just looked at him in shock. None of them had imagined that they would be seeing the Master Chief again. John did the Spartan smile across his face plate and the three Spartan IIs did the same.

"Well this is unexpected." The civilian woman stepped forward and looked up at the Master Chief, her head cocked to one side, "But then why am I not surprised to run into you again, John?"

"Doctor Halsey, it's nice to see you again," said John neutrally, though he was happy to see her again. "Who are these guys and what's in the pods?"

"This is Lucy-B091 and Tom-B292, Mark-G132, Ash-G099 and Olivia-G005, they are the 'new and improved' Spartan IIIs," said Doctor Halsey. "The pods contain a team of Spartans called Team Sabre. The pods are some kind of Slipspace stasis pods, similar to our own cryogenic freezers, but instead of freezing the bodies they are put into some kind of Slipspace bubble." A pair of Marine Medics began to approach the pods. "I suggest you two don't get too close to them," said Doctor Halsey. "The energy that these pods emit has a nauseating effect on anyone within a couple of meters." The two medics stopped in their tracks, deciding to wait for a suitable engineering team to get their patients out.

"It looks like you've been having some fun here, Master Chief." The old man said.

"Yes sir, the Covenant Loyalists wanted to take control of this installation for their own purposes."

"John you outrank me now, you don't have to call me sir," said Chief Mendez.

"Yes sir." John still wouldn't call him anything other than sir; he just had too much respect for the older NCO.

Master Sergeant O'Brian came forward. "Ma'am, would you allow my medics to check up on you, you've been through a lot and it would be unfortunate if you were to collapse."

"Yes of course."

The two medics approached the new arrivals with somewhat hesitant steps, they had obviously heard of the strength and speed of the Spartan IIs.

"Relax, they don't bite, much," said Cortana to the medics as her avatar flared to life over the platform from a holographic emitter embedded somewhere, appearing human sized beside the Master Chief.

"Doctor Halsey, how long would you say you were inside the Onyx Shield World?"

"No more than a week. Why?"

"Well, it's been over ten years since you entered, though Jolly Green Giant here was asleep in Cryo for most of that time."

"Ten years." The good doctor looked like she had just swallowed a lemon. Whole!

"I assume, by the presence of UNSC Marines and ODSTs, that we won the war?"

"Yes Doctor, and it's a very long story," said Cortana, who began to give the good doctor and the Spartans a rundown on what has happened in the last ten years. The Battle of Earth, the Battle of the Ark, the discovery of the Katana Fleet by the Master Chief and herself and the recent battle with the Covenant.

In the meantime Master Sergeant O'Brian organised the wounded into groups for 'beaming' down to the surface to the MASH unit that had been set up by the Firebase located right next to the Surface Teleportation Site. He also called in a pair of Pelicans to transport Doctor Halsey and her group to the Olympic Voyager, along with the Slipspace Stasis Pods. The Pelican Dropships, escorted by four Skyhawk fighters, made light landings on the Control Centre landing pad. Doctor Halsey and her group, along with the Master Chief and Cortana, who left a small copy of herself in the Shield Worlds mainframe, took off for the Olympic Voyager, the light from the sun glistening off the armour of the Dropships.

With this last known bastion of the Forerunners discovered many changes would come from what would be learned here, the people of the UTG would experience peace for another fifteen years, but after that all bets would be off, for there is a new enemy coming upon the horizon.


	6. Chapter 5

**Sword of Change**

**Chapter 5**

The Unified Terran Government has had relative peace now for the last fifteen years; most of the damage done to the Outer Colonies, Reach and Earth has been repaired, though the scars would never truly go away. Thanks to the discovery of both the Katana Fleet and, in less measure, the Forerunner Shield World, great advances were made in both military and civilian science. Most of the technology found on the Shield World was too far ahead of current Human technological understanding, but with the Katana Fleet an intermediate level could be reached. A major refit and rebuild project was started Fleet wide to incorporate all the new technologies into existing and new designs, like the Iowa class Fast Battleships, the Kitty Hawk class Supercarriers being marked as top priorities.

As time went by ONI began to send out long range Slipspace Probes to scout out the space in between what was assumed to be the Galactic Republic's border. Many new races were discovered, many of which the Sangheili had never encountered, mainly because they had never been out in this direction before, the Prophets had forbidden it centuries earlier. This was due to an encounter with another alien empire that rivalled the Forerunners in power, though ONI never managed to get any more Intel on this ancient empire, except that its warriors were said to have 'magical' abilities.

Most of the races encountered were barely beyond the Industrial Revolution level of development, with a few exceptions. The Chiss Ascendancy was one of the few that had full interstellar flight, another known as the Vagaari Empire and a few others though they were mostly transplants from their original home worlds in the Galactic Republic; this little grouping was known as the Rakatan Archipelago, named for the people that used to rule the old Infinite Empire that used to control a sizable portion of the galaxy several millennia ago.

The first UNSC vessel to get to Republic Space was the UNSC Dusk in 2576, the same Prowler that returned from Onyx all those years ago. It had been slow going, but they had finally gotten into Republic Space after nearly fifteen years of reconnaissance by Slipspace probes, the space in between was a vast stretch, even for the latest generation of Slipspace drives and someone had the bright idea of mapping everything between the UTG and the Galactic Republic.

Commander Derek Walsh, the commanding officer of the Dusk, was now looking at a graveyard of ships, just left there to float around in deep space; most of them looked in pretty rough shape. There were quite a few triangular shaped vessels, most of their hulls looked like they had gone through hell and barely made it out, and there was debris from a number of smaller vessels, most notably a few Dreadnought Class Cruisers and several more Corellian Consular Frigates.

"Helm, take us into that debris field, slowly. Max, get you engineering teams ready, I want to you find their data recorders if possible," Captain Walsh ordered as he studied the remains with his dark green eyes.

"Aye sir," they chorused.

Lieutenant Commander Max Peterson got one of his engineering teams ready to go out there as the Dusk manoeuvred into position over one of the larger, more intact, wrecks.

"All right boys and girls, here's the lecture, be careful out there, don't treat this as some joy ride, there could be some unexploded ordinance onboard that ship and make sure you don't snag your suit on something. The suits are tough, but they are not indestructible."

"Aye sir," chorused the Engineering team over the com system, their helmets all sealed up. The leader of the team was Lieutenant Miranda Scott, a short fiery redhead with a very long history of working with alien technology, and she was also trained in Republic technology on the Katana Fleet.

They stepped out of the ship and floated towards the wreckage of one of the big ones, a Venator class Attack Cruiser. The team cautiously floated into the port landing bay, its bay doors blasted open. What they saw in there would give them nightmares for years to come, dead bodies just floating there, some in pieces, some seemingly intact, their bodies ruined by vacuum exposure.

They floated along the corridors, making their way aft hoping to get to the engineering section where they could perhaps get some power back online. The engineering deck was a huge space with a large, intact, hypermatter reactor just waiting to be reactivated. The engineering team began examining the control system; they found the manual start up, pretty much just a couple of large levers embedded into the floor. They pulled the levers and the reactor came back to life, but there was a problem.

"Lieutenant, take a look at this," said young Japanese Lieutenant JG Kyou Hachirou. "Looks like most of the ships power conduits have been severed, there's only a few of them intact."

"Do we have access to their main computer core?"

"No not from here." He brought up a schematic on the screen he had managed to bring online.

"The computers down here are alright, but it's little more than a control system for this place, not much important information here, except about engineering. This," he pointed down to a point at the base of the twin tower structure, right above the reactor, "is where the main computer core is."

"Can we get power to it?" she asked.

"Not from here, the lines have been severed and we don't have the equipment to power it either, our own batteries just wouldn't be compatible or produce enough power to run it."

Lieutenant Scott opened up the team channel asking the others "Have you found any portable generators that we could use?"

"No sir, looks like most of them got smashed, the rest have been drained, possibly used to keep life support functioning as long as possible until the survivors were rescued," replied Ensign Vickers.

"Why do you think there were survivors?"

"Because I found some, though they're all dead now," he said sadly as he looked upon the lifeless corpses of the crew who floated in one of the intact sections that used to be Life Support Control.

Lieutenant Scott opened a channel to the Dusk. "Lieutenant Scott to Dusk, we've managed to get the Hypermatter reactor online, but this ship has been through hell, and we can't access its computer core without further assistance."

"You believe that this ship is worth salvaging?" asked the Captain.

"Yes sir, I believe it can be towed through Slipspace back to base."

"Very well, we'll put the call through to HQ; they can send a salvage vessel to pick it up, as well as several of these other wrecks." Scott's team wasn't the only one out there, there had been sent two more teams to other wrecks to see if they were worth salvaging. "In the mean time I want you to learn all that you can from these ships until your time is up."

"Aye sir," she responded, they resumed their survey of the crippled warship.

The Captain put the call in to HQ, giving them his preliminary report and added that they should send a salvage ship out here, preferably something that could hold a 1.2 kilometre long Republic vessel. He was ordered to stay near the wreck site until the salvage ship got on the scene. They waited for two days, but they weren't idle. They spent their time to continue their scans and surveys of the various ships on this battlefield.

Two days later a massive four kilometre long military salvage ship came out of a Slipspace Rupture just a few hundred kilometres away, called the Midnight Star. It had a blocky rear engineering section with a long scaffolding-like structure stretching for almost three kilometres with two adjustable dry docks capable of taking ships the size of an Iowa class. The bow was reminiscent of a Marathon class cruiser, minus the dual MAC guns; in their stead was a large observation window where a hydroponic garden for the crew was set up.

The Midnight Star picked up the Attack Cruiser using small ROV pods to manoeuvre the dead ship into its dry dock. The Dusk meanwhile set course for a planet known as Coruscant, the capital of the Galactic Republic itself.

* * *

The Dusk came out of Hyperspace a good distance away from the planet, then went to stealth mode; a bubble-like energy field surrounded the Prowler then turned invisible to all known forms of detection. To further enhance their stealth the Dusk made its way to the planet's northern pole, using the planet's strong magnetic field interaction with solar flares from the local star to further obscure themselves from Republic sensors. The sight of the planet was awe inspiring for Commander Walsh and his crew, never before had they seen so much traffic go in and out of a planet, and the amount of air traffic was greater than that of New York or Los Angeles at its most hectic, but they had a job to do.

From underneath the Prowler large doors opened, and deployed several small stealth probes, positioned along the equator they could monitor any and all communications on the planet. They also tapped into the communications nets of Coruscant, even tried to intercept a few communications to the few Republic Navy vessels in orbit. Their main mission here was to somehow find a way to introduce a Smart AI into the Republic computer system and get accurate intelligence from the Jedi Temple, GAR military HQ and the Senate, and so far they hadn't found any weak spots yet.

It had now been several hours since they had arrived and the Captain was getting a little irritable.

"Found any way in yet, Miranda?" Commander Walsh asked of the ship's Smart AI, she had taken the form of a young human woman, her hair long and straight, and blood red, her skin an unusual hue of purple, with golden computer code running the length of her avatar.

"Nothing yet sir, this place is even more difficult to break into than Fort Knox, shouldn't take much longer," she said with a devilish smile. She was a fifth generation Smart AI, build on the experiences of the third generation Smart AI Cortana, meaning that she had achieved full sentience, with full citizen rights, though they could never really hold public office they do work brilliantly as advisors and executive officers.

"Good, but try to hurry up, being here uninvited like this could get us killed and I have no intention of getting my ship riddled with holes."

"Neither do I sir, relax, Republic sensors wont detect us for a long time, with our stealth shield and the magnetic pole activity combined we could stay here almost indefinitely and they would never see us, unless they bumped into us, then it would royally ruin our day."

"It's not the Republic sensors or being run over that I'm worried about, Miranda, it's the Jedi."

Everyone had read everything that was in the databanks of the Katana Fleet, it was quite an impressive library, and while not being a complete historical record of the Republic; it did contain enough on the Jedi to show ONI their Force abilities and how to look for it in their own population, the Midi-chlorians were excellent indicators and research into what sort of abilities that people with exceptionally high midi-chlorian counts might manifest was underway.

"Somehow I doubt the Jedi will sense us if they're not looking for us, and even if they sensed us we aren't doing anything threatening towards them or their Republic, aha, I'm in," she exclaimed as she finally gained access t o the Republic network, transferring herself over the subspace airways and directly into the planet's information network, following the hard lines to the Senate, then to GAR HQ, copying and uploading everything on their computers to the Dusk, filling the crystalline hard drives to the brim with information. It took two hours for her to scan and download the information, unfortunately before she could move on to the Jedi Temple's system somebody discovered her presence and managed to track her signal.

"Damn it," she exclaimed. "Captain we've got to get out of here, I don't know how but they've managed to track our signal into their networks, and they're sending in a couple of heavies to intercept us."

"Alright helm, get us out of orbit and engage the Hyperdrive, jump us to the next system then switch to Slipspace drive and set course for home, best possible speed."

"Aye sir," responded the helmsman.

The Dusk moved out of orbit as quickly as possible, they had to get out of the planet's gravity well before the Republic warships spotted them. Even with the cloak they still had the coordinates from their trace, so they could still find them if they did a thorough search, mainly by firing upon the general area where they were. They were moving a lot slower than Walsh would have liked but to maintain their stealth they had to make sacrifices and the baffles on the engines reduced their engine signature to almost nothing, but it slowed down their ship down to a tenth of their top acceleration. The ships searching for them were a pair of Venator class Attack Cruisers, they were intently scanning the area that the Dusk had just vacated and were now scanning every cubic centimetre of space, looking for that needle in a haystack that was the Dusk.

They were almost out of the gravity well when something shook the ship.

"What the hell was that?"

"They're using some type of proton charges, trying to force us to break stealth and raise our shields, clever," answered Miranda.

"Deploy a couple of Hornet mines in their path; let's see how they like it."

From the Dusk's rear bay a pair of small, heavily stealthed, devices were dropped into the two Venators path. They slowly floated through space to their targets, when they got within five kilometres they detonated, bathing the two attack cruisers in high energy and heavy radiation, turning anyone that was looking out a viewport blind and got some very ugly flash burns.

"They've stopped following us, but more ships are entering the area," reported Miranda.

"Then it's time to make our getaway, activate the Hyperdrive and get us out of here."

The stars turned into star lines and were soon replaced by the tunnel of Hyperspace. Just before they jumped they had to decloak and for that moment they were visible. Several cams managed to get a picture of the Dusk, of course there were no identifying markings, but GAR Intelligence was able to acquire multiple images of the Dusk, getting her from multiple angles.

This would be the ship that both the Chancellor and GAR Intelligence would obsess over for months, trying to find the people who had managed to hack into the Republic's databases, including the Senate's.


	7. Chapter 6

**Sword of Change**

**Chapter 6**

**Coruscant, Jedi Temple**

**Two months later.**

Life was continuing as usual for the citizens of Coruscant, the traffic was heavy and the streets of both the Business and Senate Districts were bustling. The people that walked the streets of Coruscant came in a variety of shapes and sizes, ranging from the normal humanoid types to the truly alien looking ones, which wasn't entirely outside of ONI agent Webb's experience.

Mister Webb was a man of average height and build for a human, with a very plain, almost boring, face, like an accountant or something similar, which allowed him to disappear into a crowd of people. Right now he was merely taking in the sights of Coruscant, like any other businessman on his first trip to Coruscant, standing at the very top of the stairs leading into the Jedi Temple.

On the outside he was calm and collected, just another man going about his business, but on the inside he was taking in everything around him, noting the diversity of the Republic, seeing just about every species that was within the Republic, and some that were completely unknown to him, meaning they came from outside explored space. He had seen so many different species that he personally felt kind of small, that there was so much life out there and it was just a few more decades away before the Covenant came, stopping almost all exploration and prohibited them from making contact earlier.

Today his mission was to deliver a message to the Jedi Council without the Chancellor finding out about them until the first ambassador was opening talks with the selected Senators that the Diplomatic Office back home had chosen.

He quickly spotted a Jedi Council member, Jedi Master Mace Windu who looked pretty haggard. According to the latest intelligence he had just returned from a hard fought campaign on the Outer Rim, and he was here to take some leave time. Unfortunately the information mister Webb was going to give him was going to cause a significant headache for everyone on the Jedi Council.

Webb descended down the stairs and walked close by the Jedi Master, almost bumping into him and continued on his way down to a nearby air taxi that was waiting for him. Master Windu turned a few precious seconds later just to see him fly away in his taxi into the congested airways of Coruscant. His left hand delved into the many pockets of his Jedi robes and pulled out a small data chip, but it was of an unfamiliar design, definitely not Republic or Separatist or any other design he was familiar with, but seemed to be compatible with Republic technology. Attached to it was a note written in basic.

'_Playback this recording only when you're either alone or in closed session with the Jedi Council, do not show this recording to the Chancellor.'_

The Jedi Master pocketed the data chip again and went inside, moving along the high cathedral-like halls of the Temple which seemed to hold so much history about all the Jedi that had walked here. He quickly entered his quarters and took a quick look at the data chip. On it was a simple message of a secret meet and greet with a representative from a government from the Unknown Regions, an area of space that few ventured into and even fewer came back from. On the chip was a location and time and that he was not to be followed, but he could take up to two companions with him.

Master Windu frowned at the location, it was in the more seedier part of Coruscant and he didn't get to go down there much anymore, but whoever planted this message on him without him noticing until it the person was already long gone had impressed him, and he sensed no ill intent from these people. He quickly ejected the data chip and headed up to the upper levels to search for an old friend. A quick search later he found Master Yoda in one of the many private meditation rooms with meditation platforms of various sizes and shapes to suit the individual Jedi.

Master Yoda sat on one of the smaller circular platforms in deep meditation as he usually did more often than he had done in the past, trying to see through the fog of the dark side that had clouded their senses for so long. He quickly sensed Master Windu's presence.

"Master Windu, what brings you here?"

"A message from an unknown player someone from outside of the war."

"Hm, unusual it is, normally a new race would try to contact the Republic before the Jedi."

"Maybe they don't like what they have seen so far, maybe they just want to stay out of the war, but don't really trust either side."

"Go to this meeting, you must, find out who these people are, but take two companions with you, you should."

"I'll take Master Fisto and Shaak Ti. If this is a Separatist trick we should be able to get out of any trap that may have been set for us," said Master Windu as he stood up to leave.

"Careful you must be, Master Windu, and do not underestimate them. I sense a great disturbance in the force, a shift in our future I feel, though still clouded by the dark side."

Master Windu merely nodded in acceptance and made his way out of the meditation chamber, heading down to pick up the two Jedi Masters. He found them in one of the sparring rooms; testing each other's skills in both Sabre duelling and Force combat. They were going at it fast and hard, attack, counter attack, repulse, and the occasional Force Push to knock each other off balance.

Shaak Ti moved with both grace and accuracy, flowing around Master Fisto's fast attacks which seemed almost a blur to Windu. She jumped high into the air and with swish of her light sabre sent a powerful burst of Force energy straight for the amphibian Jedi, forcing him to leap to the side to avoid it. Shaak Ti nimbly landed on her feet and before Kit could recover she had her light sabre underneath his chin.

"Yield?" she asked.

"I yield, good match," replied Fisto with his trademark grin.

"Impressive as always, Master Shaak Ti," complimented Master Windu.

"Thank you Master Windu, but I do not believe that you came just to compliment me on my skills," she said knowingly.

Master Windu's rare smile receded back into his normal stern features as he nodded.

"You would be correct. I received an invitation to meet with a representative of a government from the Unknown Regions."

"That's a long way from here," remarked Master Fisto. "Unfortunately I am unavailable. My cruiser leaves within the hour for the Outer Rim Sieges," said Master Fisto apologetically then left the sparring room for his quarters.

"Very well, looks like it'll just be the two of us then."

"Yes, so where is this 'rendezvous'?"

"In the Undercity, in the worst neighbourhood you could imagine."

"Unusual, but it would be nice to get out of the Temple for a little while," she said as she gathered her robes and followed Master Windu to one of the many small craft bays in the temple and got a speeder, slightly beaten up, but well maintained the two of them flew quickly into Coruscant's traffic. They quickly entered the area and set their speeder down on a sidewalk, activating its high security anti-theft systems, they didn't want their ride stolen in this rough neighbourhood.

They both wore heavy drab cloaks, something which wasn't that unusual down here since most residents in this part of town wore such clothing and were sleeping on the streets most nights. They also hid their faces, though not quite as successfully for Shaak Ti because of her montrals and head-tails, forcing the hood of the cloak to ride high on her head, but no one seemed to notice them too much, most didn't really care.

As they walked towards their destination they could feel the eyes of someone or something staring upon them.

"Looks like our hosts have spotted us," Shaak Ti quietly commented.

Master Windu merely nodded his head and continued on in a calm and rational manner, heading straight for the building the message had directed him to. They noticed that the place was pretty run down, both by time and neglect, hardly a place you wanted to get caught unawares, and there were plenty of hiding places, all occupied. The two Jedi Masters proceeded forwards cautiously, not completely trusting theses people, even though the Force told them that there was no immediate danger.

They entered the apartment and carefully scanned the area with their senses, seeing only one person in the shadows behind a desk, a window behind him with the blinds almost fully closed, showing only a silhouette.

"Welcome Jedi masters Windu and Shaak Ti. I expected Master Windu certainly, but Master Shaak Ti as well, now this truly is a surprise," said the man in the shadows.

"Who are you?" Windu asked.

"I am merely a messenger with a warning. Do not trust the Chancellor, we have been investigating this war and how it started and a lot of clues point to him, not enough for a trial to convict him, but enough to make us suspicious. As for me, my name is Webb, and that is all I am willing to give you. Also you should take a closer look at the Contingency Orders that your clones have been trained to follow without question, particularly Order 66, I believe you will find it quite enlightening."

"Who exactly do you represent?" Shaak Ti asked this time as they relaxed into the chairs in front of the desk.

"I represent the Office of Naval Intelligence of the United Nation Space Command. My government is going to try to stay out of this war, since it is so far away from our own borders, but there may come a time when you may need to flee the Republic, and I can tell you right now that there is a safe haven for you if you need it."

"Why do you think that we might need such a safe haven?"

"Because the end of the war is nearing, intelligence gathering for us in this part of the galaxy is difficult, but not impossible and what we've heard indicates an attack upon Coruscant could be in the works and scheduled some time in around two or three months, before that happens we intend to send an ambassador to the Republic to announce ourselves to the galaxy. You might be interested in knowing that it was us that broke into the Senate and GAR databanks," he said with wry amusement as he took in the looks of both Jedi Masters.

"You do realise that incident might have started a war between our two governments?" Master Windu pointed out.

"A possibility, but an unlikely one since you didn't really know where we were located at the time, and no one was killed in the incident. Besides a lot of the info I just gave you came from files taken from the Chancellor's personal files, not exactly appealing. We see only two possibilities. Either he is a pawn for this 'Dark Lord' of yours or he is the one you have been looking for."

The two Jedi Masters didn't like those two possibilities.

"We would like our ambassador to meet with representative from your government in this neutral system, just on the rim of explored space," said Mister Webb as he pushed forward a data pad with a small star map and the coordinates to a small system with a single habitable planet and a date and time of the rendezvous.

"Now I believe you should go, the Chancellor's agents have been following you ever since you left you temple and we had to take them out before you came here. As I said we don't trust the Chancellor one bit. Don't worry we didn't kill them, but they will be waking up with a killer headache in the morning," Webb said reassuringly at the two Jedi's pointed looks just before they got up and left the crummy apartment.

* * *

After their meeting with the agent from ONI the two Jedi Masters looked over the data they had been given and compared it to the evidence they had already accumulated over the course of their own investigation. Some of it was old news to them, but some of it was quite eye opening. There had been a large number of encrypted and unauthorized transmissions coming out from 500 Republica and the Senate building that none of the slicers under the council's employ had been able to break or track down properly. Now they had seen various recordings of transmissions of Darth Sidious himself, completely decoded, but his face was concealed by his dark hood, masking his features most effectively and his voice was still distorted, easy to understand, but impossible to tell who it was, likely due to the Dark Side's influence on Sidious. They still didn't have a proper identity for Sidious, but his plans were now a little clearer.

What was most disturbing of all was Order 66; an order that basically turned their loyal clone troopers on their Jedi Generals and Commanders and made every single Jedi an enemy of the Republic. If the Chancellor wanted to he could potentially use Order 66 to kill off every Jedi in the field at the exact same time, and the public wouldn't bat an eye at it, their reputation had been severely tarnished recently with a number of Jedi giving into the Dark Side and everyone knew that it didn't take all that much to make a Jedi fall.

Masters Shaak Ti and Windu quickly called a council meeting. As luck would have it all of the council members were back on Coruscant that day, so no one would have to join in by holographic transmission over the Holonet, which could potentially be intercepted and recorded.

All twelve members of the Jedi High Council sat in their comfortable seats and listened to what Masters Windu and Shaak Ti had discovered.

"It all boils down to a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing to the Chancellor, and I don't like the fact that our troops have been conditioned to obey an order that would effectively execute the entire Jedi Order in one swift move," said Master Windu, his voice gave.

"I suggest that we start making a contingency plans, just in case the Chancellor decides to give the order, and start moving the Younglings away from the temple," Master Kenobi suggested.

"But where would we send them?" Master Secura asked. "The Jedi Temple for the moment is the only safe place for them right now."

"How about we station some fast transports outside the Temple, just in case we have to evacuate, also we should start removing the Holocrons and databases from the vault and take them to a secure location, so if the order is given the Sith won't have access to them," Master Ki Adi Mundi suggested.

"I agree, our main concern would be getting the younglings away from the fighting if the order is given, and we cannot allow our knowledge to fall into the hands of the Sith," said Master Secura.

"Do all agree with this?" Master Yoda asked and everyone nodded their heads in agreement. "Then begin preparations we will, and Master Kenobi, you will go and meet with the Senators to the rendezvous and act as our representative. Take padawan Tano with you, it would be a good experience for her to meet these people."

"Yes Master," answered Kenobi and the meeting adjourned.

**

* * *

System THX-1138, one week later**

The Star system was a currently unnamed one, except for its alpha-numeric designation. It was a regular G-type star with three planets, two rocky and one gas giant. The first planet was little more than an oversized rock that was too close to the star to contain any bodies of water of any kind, the gas giant was about the size of Saturn with a number of small moons, which were also little more than planet-sized chunks of rock and ice. The second planet however was in the safe liquid water zone and was four fifths the size of Earth and looked similar, except its oceans were purple and had a dense ring of asteroids surrounding it at the equator.

Orbiting the planet was a single Venator class cruiser, the Vigilance, General Kenobi's flagship. On the ship's Command Bridge General Kenobi, along with Senators Bail Organa of Alderaan and Padme Amidala of the Naboo, were looking out at the view, waiting for the UNSC vessel bringing the ambassador. From the side of the bridge Padawan Ahsoka Tano came on and asked, "Are they here yet?"

Everyone had to chuckle at the young Jedi's question, even Master Kenobi.

"Not yet padawan, be patient, it's only a few more minutes until they're scheduled to arrive."

"Look, out there," said one of the clones as he saw what no one from this side of the galaxy had seen, a Slipspace rupture, it seemed to glow a bright white then a ship came through. It was slim and angular with a pair of the biggest pair of guns Kenobi had ever seen on a ship that size. It couldn't have been more than nine hundred meters long, but seem to have several weapons turrets of various sizes dotted along its hull, which Kenobi soon identified as Turbolasers, though the big guns mounted on the bow were definitely like nothing he had ever seen before.

"They are requesting communications, sir," a clone at communications reported.

"Put it on the monitor," Master Kenobi responded.

A second later the main monitor on the port side of the Command Bridge changed from a standard status display to showing the unknown ship's bridge with humans in the control chairs. In the central chair a man sat with dark curly hair with a bushy moustache wearing a grey uniform, not too dissimilar to Clone duty officers uniforms, but the insignia was very different.

"Greetings, Master Jedi, I am Captain Marcus Ortega, commanding officer of the UNSC destroyer Will of Iron, I must say it is a pleasure to meet the famed Negotiator."

"You've heard of me?"

"In intelligence briefings you were found to be a level headed military commander and an excellent negotiator, and I must say your military accomplishments speak for themselves, even if you lead from the front."

"Captain I am Senator Amidala, and I must say it is a pleasure meeting a new civilization from beyond the Unknown Regions."

"The same to you Senator, may I introduce our ambassador," Ortega said, gesturing to the side of the bridge, a woman in her early thirties with dark hair, a pointed nose, serious eyes, and wearing a smart business woman's suit, "Ambassador Rachel Weir."

"I offer greetings from the Unified Terran Government and I hope that our talks will be most fruitful, I would like permission to come aboard so we can begin our talks."

"We would be honoured to have you onboard, we're sending over landing instructions for your shuttle," said Master Kenobi, while Captain Ortega looked to the side then nodded his head. "Instructions received."

"I look forward to meeting you in person," said Weir just before they cut communications.

* * *

Minutes later a Pelican dropship launched from a small hangar located midway underneath the ship's dual MAC guns, quickly picked up speed and went straight for the Vigilance. A pair of V-Wings came and escorted the dropship into the cavernous main hangar deck of the Vigilance, which was a scene of controlled chaos, with clones and droids running and trundling along all over the place, conducting basic maintenance and repairs to the fighters embarked onboard. The pelican came in through the large doors and the pilot angled its engine nacelles down, producing enough downward thrust to keep it airborne, and backed up into a waiting landing spot.

A clone lieutenant waited patiently for the ambassador and her entourage to come out of the dropship as it settled down. The first to step out was a pair of marines, both in full combat armour, similar in many ways to ODST armour except that the helmet was the same general design that had been used for decades, with its open front and visor that only covered the eyes, though it also acted as a HUD. They were both armed with APR3A assault rifles, outwardly similar to the MA5C, except that this rifle was an energy weapon, combining the best of both Covenant plasma technology and Blaster weaponry found in the Katana Fleet, with a single MA6G hand gun on their right or left hip, depending upon if they were right or left handed. Next came the ambassador herself and her aide, a pretty young woman named Sonja Gomez, with dark hair and Spanish features, contrasting with the ambassador's more handsome face and figure, though didn't project the same aura of strength and experience the way the ambassador did.

The Lieutenant guided the ambassador and her entourage to the conference room where Master Kenobi and the Senators were waiting. Master Kenobi and Senators Amidala and Organa all stood up when they came in, but both were surprised by the armed escort that followed them.

"There is no need for guards here ambassador, you are safe here on my ship," said Kenobi.

"I'm sorry Kenobi, but the guards stay, however I am willing to let them wait outside if they are an inconvenience," she said, hoping to prevent an incident.

"That'll be acceptable," Kenobi relented.

The Ambassador shot a look at the marines and they relented, taking up positions on either side of the doors alongside another pair of clones called Waxer and Boyle.

"I believe a little introduction to the Unified Terran Government is in order since we know far more about you than you know about us," said the ambassador and noted the looks of intense interest on her host's faces.

She started with a little basic history of their homeworld of Earth then onto more recent events, like the Human-Covenant war. To aid in her little introduction she had her aid showed images on the conference tables holo-projector, showing various worlds that had been attacked, conquered and razed to the ground, either with Energy projectors or conventional assaults. The images disturbed the Jedi Master and Senators greatly, the thought of their own worlds being destroyed by plasma bombardment was the stuff nightmares were made of. She continued on to how the war ended. She described the final battle at the Ark which saw the destruction of the Flood, the majority of the Covenant Loyalists forces and the final dissolution of the Covenant.

"Currently our relations with the former Covenant species are still slightly strained, but we're still talking, at least on a diplomatic level," the ambassador sighed. Things hadn't gone quite as smoothly as the diplomatic service wanted it to, there was just too much bad blood between both sides.

"We have only just recently recovered, and we only became aware of you only a few years ago." This was a half-truth. The UNSC had known the existence of the Republic for nearly fifteen years, but it had taken them a long time to properly scout out the space between them. "We have had enough of war, but we are also interested in trade, and we would be more than happy to act as mediators between the Separatists and the Republic, but let me make something abundantly clear, we will not enter this war on any side."

"We understand your position, and I personally agree with you," said Senator Organa. "There has been enough death in this war, and to draw in anymore innocent people into this would be criminal."

"Unfortunately any peace talks would be derailed almost immediately by the current mood of the Senate. The Chancellor and a number of Senators believe that to even talk to them would be to legitimize their position," said Senator Amidala in shame, remembering her first attempt to try to initiate peace-talks that ultimately ended with the death of an old friend of hers and her friend's only son just a week later.

With a loud boom and a shake alarms began sounding throughout the interior of the ship. They were under attack.

"Bridge, report," said Master Kenobi shortly into the intercom.

"Droid forces just arrived, sir," Commander Cody responded. "They took out our Hyperdrive with their first shot and three frigates have engaged the Will of Iron, her shields were up the whole time and she's fighting back."

* * *

Out in space a vicious duel was being waged between the Will of Iron and three Separatist frigates, exchanging short ranged Turbolaser fire while the Vigilance was engaged by a Providence class cruiser, both were exchanging broadsides at near point blank range, blasting large pieces of armour off of the respective ships hulls.

The engagement had started with the cruiser dropping out of Hyperspace almost right on top of the Vigilance with Turbolasers fully charged and ready to fire, hitting the Vigilance right on its tail where its main hyperdrive was housed. Seconds later three frigates came out of Hyperspace between the Will of Iron and the Vigilance, preventing them from combining their firepower, though it was a more even match than they thought it would be.

On the bridge of the cruiser the droid in charge cackled in delight, only to turn into a hacking cough. "I have you now Kenobi and that new ship will be quite a prize I'm sure," General Grievous thought to himself aloud as he studied the readouts on the Will of Iron. Its shields were blocking most scans and the only thing he could get was the ships power curve, which was surprisingly high for a vessel of its size. For now though his full attention was taken up by the Vigilance, which was putting up quite a fight.

"Continue firing all cannons and launch all fighters and bombers, I want that Jedi cruiser crippled immediately. The frigates can deal with that puny UNSC vessel."

The General was going to be eating his words though only a minute or so later when the Will of Iron managed to line up a shot at one of the frigates that was directly in line with Grievous' ship. With an evil grin the weapons officer reported the firing solution.

"Fire both MAC guns, triple shot both of them, blast right through those mechanical monstrosities," Captain Ortega ordered and with six small vibrations six 700 ton projectiles were accelerated to 60% the speed of light in rapid succession, slamming into the frigate furthest away from them. The first two silver slugs destroyed its shields, the third tore straight through its armour and caused a reactor breach, blowing it apart. The last three slugs hit the cruiser all along its starboard broadside, its stronger shields protected the ship, but the last shot hit the elongated communications and sensor pod, hitting the spire at the very base and sent the ship spinning, hurling both the general and his crew around the inside of his ship.

With hacking coughs the cyborg general lifted himself back up from the deck of his bridge and barked out a string of both angry curses and vengeful orders. "All fighters and bombers are to cripple that ship. I want that ship's captain in my talons before the day is out."

A wave of droid fighters descended upon the Will of Iron, only to be met by a very thick deluge of plasma, fired from several Gatling style point defence laser cannons, which had replaced the old fashioned CIWS on newer ships, and space was filled with bright white hot plasma, incinerating anything that wasn't shielded or armoured enough. As the Tri-fighters distracted the point defence guns Hyena bombers came in and started launching proton torpedoes, forcing the defence guns to target the missiles instead, destroying the majority of them, but a few managed to slip by, impacted the shields and glowed golden with the impacts, shrugging off the fire as it would from a pair of plasma torpedoes.

"Arm Longbow pods alpha and beta, target the frigates, ripple fire them," Captain Ortega ordered.

The two designated missile pods, mounted just behind and to the sides of the MAC guns opened up and thirty Longbows launched from each of them, cold-launched and accelerated to 20% of light speed, then their thrusters engaged, glowing a bright blue from the plasma they were enveloped in and accelerated even more, each one weaving crazily through space on its own course, following the instructions of the Will of Iron's Smart AI William. Several were shot down by both enemy fighters and the ships own point defence guns, but enough got through, slammed into both of them and dropped their shields, one last Longbow managed to slip by and penetrate one of the frigates amid-ships, hitting one of its two main reactors, causing it to explode, vaporizing a large portion of it and left it a lifeless hulk.

The last frigate was left wide open, its shields having been taken down and was now under the secondary guns of the Will of Iron, which the ship's weapons officer was happy to see and took advantage of the situation, tearing the last frigate apart with a hail of turbolaser fire. Now all there was left was that cruiser and the droid fighters that were still swarming local space, which were being taken care of by the Vigilance's fighters.

On the bridge of his ship General Grievous could not believe his eyes, a ship that was less than a kilometre long had singlehandedly taken down three frigates and had crippled his ships shields, leaving it at the mercy of the Vigilance's turbolaser batteries.

"Time to call in our reinforcements," he said as he typed into his console, sending out a brief transmission to the next star system where a small fleet was waiting. As Turbolaser fire from both the Vigilance and the Will of Iron started pummelling his ship, destroying what was left of his shields and started impacting the armour a fleet decelerated out of Hyperspace only a few hundred kilometres away. A single Lucrehulk class battleship along with a pair of Recusant class destroyers and four more Munificent class frigates, patent overkill against just two warships, but Count Dooku had wanted to cover all the bases, and it seems that the Count was right, again.

General Kenobi paled slightly at the sight of the Separatist fleet that had come to rescue General Grievous' flagship.

Captain Ortega on the other hand just bowed his head grimly. "Send the signal," he ordered.

AN: I apologise to my viewers, but after reading a number of comments both here and on Space battles I revisisted this chapter and rewrote it.


	8. Chapter 7

**Sword of Change**

**Chapter 7**

**System THX-1138**

In space there is no atmosphere, no sound, just more space, and today the THX-1138 system had been the witness to a battle that was still raging on. Republic fighters and Separatist droid fighters fought and died in brilliant soundless explosions, the quick flashes being their engine cores being breached and their fuel ignited. This system was supposed to be the sight of a new peaceful First Contact with a race from the Unknown Regions, but had now drawn a new faction into the war, and now the Republic cruiser Vigilance and the UNSC destroyer Will of Iron was staring down a fleet of Separatist warships that were now bearing down on them, but the day was far from over.

A huge swarm of fresh droid fighters were closing in on the two allied ships, the Will of Iron spewed out huge amounts of weapons fire, trying to down as many enemy fighters as possible while the Vigilance concentrated on the enemy frigates which had moved forward as a spearhead for the Separatist general's counterattack.

Meanwhile Ahsoka was flying in her very own customized silver and red Jedi Interceptor, commanding the Vigilance's fighter squadrons in a desperate life and death dance in space, dodging weapons fire like a madwoman, while simultaneously barking out orders.

"Blue squadron, loosen up, split up into pairs and engage the fighters, don't get separated from your wingman," she barked out as she and her wingman in a V-wing cut through another squadron of Vulture droids, scrapping them in seconds, with a quick spread of concussion missiles and laser fire from both of them. She sensed more than saw the battlefield, keeping her senses attuned to the moment and where an attack could come from. With a sharp turn she avoided a violent volley of weapons fire from a pair of Tri-droids, her wingman wasn't so fortunate. He was just one half second too slow when a fully powered laser hit clipped his starboard wing, sending him tumbling through space to be destroyed by another droid fighter.

Ahsoka felt the instant that her wingman died, but pushed it to the back of her mind and concentrated on the task at hand, scrapping as many droid fighters as possible. She took a quick look around the battlefield, but all she saw was a crowd of droid fighters with only a small number of friendly fighters that she could see, fighting bravely, but there were just too many of them. Suddenly space was lit up with thousands of brilliant explosions of droid fighters exploding all around her, clearing the area around Ahsoka's fighter and her comrades. The cavalry had arrived.

* * *

Just three light seconds away from the main fight a bright rip in space unfolded, disgorging a number of big blocky warships, consisting of the UNSC Super Carrier Kitty Hawk, the Marathon class heavy cruiser Napoleon, and four UNSC destroyers. From the Kitty Hawk several squadrons of the new YSS-2000 Sabre II space superiority fighters launched. It looked similar to the older Sabre, but underneath the hood everything was different. Its engines were far more powerful and all four engines were capable of vectoring their thrust, and could pull extreme high G manoeuvres without killing its flight crew. Armed with a pair rapid fire Gatling laser cannons, a pair of missile pods on top of the fuselage just ahead of the main engines, and built into the lower fuselage was a missile bay with two rotating missile racks, capable of carrying various different munitions, from Shiva nuclear missiles to Phoenix cluster missiles, which was what they were equipped with today.

Gina 'Tuna' Torres, the commander of the Black Badger squadron didn't feel much of the acceleration as she and the eleven other Sabre IIs in her squadron were launched off the deck of the Kitty Hawk then hit maximum burn on the engines to get clear from the ship for the next squadron to sortie.

"Alright ladies and gentlemen, we have a target rich environment in front of us, so let's get to work. Arm your Phoenixes and standby for my order to launch," she said over the squadron frequency and got several confirmation signals in return.

Following behind them an EW Longsword was busily assigning each fighter its targets, it was responsible for managing the combat network for the fighters, relaying up to date targeting data.

Tuna's HUD lit up as her targeting system came alive with confirmed lock-on's, each one painted red, while the ones targeted by the rest of the squadron were painted orange while friendlies were painted blue.

"Badgers we are clear to engage. Black Badger 1, Fox 3, Fox 3," she called out and two Phoenix missiles dropped from their respective racks in her lower missile bay, then accelerated to 40% of light speed in seconds, riding their main ion rocket motor for most of the distance. At a predetermined time and place the missiles shed their outer coverings, revealing a score of smaller anti-fighter missiles hidden inside, each one going active the moment they were unleashed and homed in on the closest hostile target. The droid fighters had seen the missiles, their electronic droid brains relayed the information instantly back to their mothership to request instructions, but before they could act the small number of missiles had split up into hundreds of smaller ones and there were too many of them for the droids to effectively track and destroy.

All of local space was lit up as the enemy droid fighters exploded spectacularly all over the battlefield, relieving the battle worn Republic fighter squadrons from the Vigilance.

* * *

Admiral Diego Garcia stood in the CIC of the Kitty Hawk, paying close attention to the battlefield he and his task force had just entered. He had ordered his fighter squadrons to launch the moment they had exited Slipspace, and already the fighters were engaging.

"Analysis of enemy combatants?" the admiral asked.

"Four Munificent class frigates, two Recusant class destroyers, one Providence class cruiser and one Lucrehulk class battleship. The cruiser appears to be damaged and is heading out of the system, the rest seem to be concentrating on the Republic warship and the Will of Iron," reported one of the sensor operators.

"All ships begin spinning up MAC guns for firing, plot solutions on all seven remaining warships..."

"Sir, positive ID on the cruiser, it's the Invisible Hand, General Grievous' flagship."

"Belay my last order," Admiral Garcia said quickly. "Destroyers Archer and Dillinger are to intercept the Invisible hand and either board it and capture that ship or destroy it, the rest of us will continue to engage the rest."

Confirmation of orders were quickly given and the two destroyers quickly changed course to intercept the Invisible Hand, gunning their engines to catch up to the enemy warship, while the Kitty Hawk, Napoleon and the two remaining destroyers Galahad and Cool under Fire dealt with the Separatist fleet. The first shots that were fired by the Kitty Hawk task force was the MAC guns, the destroyers and Napoleon fired their dual guns, sending 600 ton heavy penetrator rounds directly at the separatists, while the Kitty Hawk fired a single 1200 ton shell. The effects were as predictable as they were terrible. Every enemy ship felt the effects of the heavy kinetic strikes that came from well beyond the effective range of their own weapons, Turbolasers were limited to roughly 100 000 kilometres due to particle dispersion, rendering the turbolaser bolts ineffective even against low-grade civilian shields, while a solid bullet fired from a magnetic accelerator will keep on going until it hits something, and that something was seven Separatist warships that lost their shields, the sheer kinetic force of the hits caused overloads in their shield grids, rendering them defenceless against the follow up shots.

* * *

Meanwhile the Invisible Hand was desperately trying to get away from the two destroyers that were right on its tail. General Grievous could already hear the chastising remarks that were in store for him from Count Dooku, another humiliating defeat, and it wasn't even against Jedi, but some unknown warship from the Unknown Regions, and the worst part was that the B1 engineering droid had just told him that the hyperdrive was disabled.

"WHAT," he yelled in rage. "How did this happen?"

"The navigational array was damaged by the small enemy vessel's kinetic strike weapon, rendering it impossible to plot accurate hyperspace jumps, we are currently working to repair the damage now and we should be able to jump momentarily," the B1 engineering droid said quickly, cowering at its station as it hoped that the general wouldn't take its head off as he was notorious for.

The General sighed heavily and turned towards the ship's Neimoidian captain. "Keep the sub-lights going at maximum acceleration, I don't want those ships to catch up to us before we're ready to jump," he said menacingly, the captains skin was even moister than usual from nervous perspiration, not just from fear of the general, but also the fear of those ships catching up to them.

A minute later the ship began shaking as ranging shots from the two destroyers' turbolaser batteries hit, at this range they were not powerful enough to weaken their shields significantly, all they would do was shake them up a little, but it was unnerving.

The two destroyers were quickly closing the distance, their engines burning brightly as they fired their turbolasers, sending tightly packed blue bursts of energy at the Invisible Hand, both ships captains were not about to let this mass murderer get away from them, even if they had to burn out their own engines to do it. However as they closed in on their target another ship came out of hyperspace, a Providence class heavy cruiser, weapons blazing and not slowing down, forcing the two UNSC destroyers to break off pursuit or be run over.

On the ship's command bridge Count Dooku smiled grimly as he watched the two unknown warships change course to avoid his ship. "General Grievous, I strongly recommend you leave the battlefield now," the Count ordered, as his own ship turned in preparation for its own jump to hyperspace.

"Yes my lord," responded the mechanical general, the arrival of Dooku had given his ships repair droids the time needed to fix the navigation system, and within the blink of an eye both ships jumped, both UNSC captains and crews berated themselves for loosing such a prize.

* * *

Meanwhile back on the Vigilance General Kenobi watched as the battle unfolded before his eyes. The UNSC was clearly a very strong opponent and its fighters had shown to be vastly superior to droid fighter, both in technology and in the training of their pilots. He had been worried about Anakin's padawan when the droids had started to overwhelm her and the fighter squadrons she commanded, and with their hyperdrive offline they couldn't withdraw.

"I believe that this little impromptu demonstration of our military shows that while we may not have the numbers of the CIS or the Republic our teeth are plenty big and sharp enough," said Ambassador Weir neutrally. While she had never been a fan of the military she certainly understood that it was a necessary evil.

"You certainly have a strong military. What will the reaction of the UTG be after this?"

"Most likely a declaration of war, followed up by several deep strikes on their main military bases, almost immediately," Ambassador Weir responded.

"Then how about an alliance with the Republic, if we combine our forces we could end this war much more quickly," said General Kenobi, hoping that her answer would be positive.

"I will have to speak to my government; this attack has changed a lot of things, but we are not fully prepared for another sustained conflict, even a short one," she said. She had been briefed by ONI about the Separatists endgame, but that was months away and before that the UNSC would have been all too happy to just let the two giants slug it out, but now that they knew of the existence of the Unified Terrans it would only be a matter of time before they were forced to choose between the two, and an alliance with the Republic would allow the UNSC to put its own pieces into play, without arousing too much suspicion.

* * *

The battle outside was quickly coming to a close. The Separatist fleet had no choice but to withdraw when the two destroyers that had been chasing the Invisible Hand came back and added their own strength to the battle, catching most of the fleet in a deadly crossfire of blue turbolaser fire, Longbow missiles and silvery 600 and 1200 ton MAC shells. In short order all four Munificent class frigates were destroyed, mercilessly gunned down by the four destroyers in the carrier group.

The neimoidian admiral in command of the Lucrehulk watched as his fleet was torn apart around him then gave the order to retreat.

The Lucrehulk began manoeuvring its massive bulk around for a jump to hyperspace, its shields flaring from impacts from powerful kinetic strike impacts and a torrent of turbolaser fire, steadily weakening the battleship's shields. One of the escorting Recusant class destroyers got gutted by a MAC round from the carrier. The MAC round struck the bow at the lower decks and travelled the length of the ship, coring straight through the lower decks and vented those sections to space. It also managed to hit one of the ships reactors, causing extreme damage and resulted in an overload that destroyed the ship.

"Admiral we have lost another vessel," reported one of the B1 battle droid controllers.

"What is taking so long?" the admiral asked angrily, and also a little fearfully. "We should have jumped by now."

"Sorry sir, the navi-computer is having difficulty plotting a hyperspace jump due to battle damage to the computer systems."

"Just get us out of here," the admiral ordered weakly, thankful that the crew were emotionless droids, no doubt an organic crew would have mutinied by now and surrendered the ship, and the admiral had no wish to be on the receiving end of the wrath of either General Grievous or Count Dooku, having heard the stories of what happened to anyone who disappointed them.

A powerful sounding boom was both heard and felt throughout the ship. The ship was shaken so hard by the impact that the admiral and every droid on the bridge were thrown from their stations. It had to be a heavy kinetic round that hit them.

"Damage report," the admiral requested.

"Our ship has suffered extreme structural damage along the starboard arm, it's breaking off," reported on of the B1s and the admiral took a look through the bridge view ports. As the Lucrehulk was turning when the Heavy MAC round hit it hit them at an angle, and the round passed straight through the thick armoured plating and destroyed parts of the internal space frame, which made a large chunk of the ship break off, exposing a large amount of the battleship's internal structure to space and sucked everything within the exposed sections.

Another B1 came forward with another report. "We are now unable to enter hyperspace sir, there has been too much structural damage to the ship, and if we attempt to jump to light speed we'd be torn apart."

The Neimoidian admiral could feel his little world crashing down around him, even if he escaped this somehow, he would be extremely punished for this failure, and all the prestige, power and money he had received as an admiral in the Confederate Navy would be stripped from him, leaving him with nothing, but it was better to run and live than fight futilely and die.

"Ready a shuttle for launch, and have all droid squads begin preparations for an enemy boarding action, I'm leaving the ship."

A T1 Tactical Droid barred his way from the bridge turbolift. "I am sorry admiral, but our programming will not allow you to leave the ship during a battle, you must stay and command us until victory or defeat, and I must tell you that our chances of success are now less than twenty percent."

Another heavy hit rocked the ship as the admiral could only stare in shock at the tactical droid in front of him.

"This is absurd, droid move aside now or I will shoot you," he said as he drew a small handout blaster from his side holster, but got blasted by the tactical droid before he could even blink, falling dead instantly.

"That was a mistake on your part admiral. To prevent capture all high ranking organic commanders must be eliminated to prevent important strategic intelligence to fall into enemy hands."

The Tactical droid took a command console and began organising the droid army onboard, preparing for the moment the enemy would board the ship, and began the process of erasing all data in the ship's computer banks.

* * *

As the last Recusant class destroyer jumped to hyperspace Admiral Garcia decided to just destroy the enemy Lucrehulk instead of risking his marines in a boarding action.

"Captain, I want that enemy battleship removed from my space," he ordered Captain Even Tyler on the bridge ahead of the CIC.

"Aye admiral, tactical officer prime main MAC gun for a triple shot barrage, and prime all Longbow missile pods and turbolasers for firing," the captain ordered.

"Aye sir, priming main MAC gun for triple shot barrage and Longbow missile and turbolaser barrage, turning over fire control to Smart AI, she's all yours Cat," said the tactical officer. Just to the side of the tactical officer's console a small hologram of a woman coloured blood red with turquoise computer script flowing on the surface.

"Target acquired, aligning the ship for barrage fire, firing," the Smart AI intoned.

The Kitty Hawk moved began manoeuvring its 3.5 kilometre bulk and lined up for a barrage with its main MAC gun, while the missile pods opened up their doors and turbolaser turrets took aim at the heavily damaged Lucrehulk battleship.

The first to weapon to fire was the Longbow missile pods, quickly ejecting missiles into space and accelerated to 30% of light speed. Once they were clear of the pods they fired their ion rocket thrusters, boosting their acceleration even further. Soon after it was the MAC gun's turn, the firing of which sent massive vibrations through the ship as it fired once, twice then a third time, all of the rounds were 1200 ton shells and accelerated to 60% of light speed with the turbolasers firing right after the MAC shells left the mouth of the guns. Almost exactly the same time all three different weapon systems hit the heavily damaged and listing Separatist warship, the Longbow fusion missiles hit first and detonated either against the hull or penetrated it and detonated on the inside, a few even went through the giant breach in the starboard arm, blowing it wide open. The MAC shells penetrated and shot straight through the centre sphere, blasting clean through the sphere's own fusion reactors and the main reactors in the primary hull, setting off a chain reaction that made the fusion reactors blow up spectacularly at the same time as the turbolaser barrage hit, adding more fuel to the fire and vaporised whatever was left of the ship.

"Target has been destroyed, transferring fire control back to tactical officer," said Cat and her avatar winked out from the holo-pedestal.

"Begin recalling our fighters and hail the Republic vessel, I need to speak with Ambassador Weir," said Admiral Garcia.

Soon enough communication was established with the Vigilance, an image of the ambassador and a Jedi General that Admiral Garcia recognised as General Kenobi from the ONI files he had read earlier about the Clone Wars.

"Admiral, on behalf of myself and my crew I thank you for your timely intervention," said General Kenobi.

"Think nothing of it sir, we were responding to the Will of Iron's distress call and we were on standby in case something was to go wrong. Ambassador is your delegation in one piece?"

"We are fine admiral, just a few bumps and bruises, nothing permanent, however I would appreciate a lift back to Earth, General Kenobi has formally requested an alliance with us, and I need to get back to Earth to present the request to the UTG," said Ambassador Weir.

"Very well, General Kenobi does your ship require assistance to get home?"

"No admiral, we have already sent a request for a ship to come and replace our hyperdrive, it was destroyed in General Grievous' opening attack, but it shouldn't take long to have this ship ready again for Hyperspace again."

"Very well, good luck to you and I hope we see each other again, perhaps while under not such dire circumstances."

The comm. channel was closed and soon the ambassador's Pelican was en-route to the Kitty Hawk.

* * *

AN: I know that this is a shorter chapter than normal, but I couldn't find a way of continuing this chapter, but don't worry, the story is most definitely not abandoned, just had to take a break from it.


	9. Chapter 8

**Sword of Change**

**Chapter 8**

Darkness versus the light. An overly simple concept in a universe of many colours, where there are so many shades of gray that the concept of a world of black and white is in no way near possible, except in the minds of the deluded. The Republic, defended by the protectors of the light, the Jedi, had stood as a beacon of hope for countless millennia, the Jedi being the peacekeepers and peacemakers of the galaxy.

The Separatists on the other hand were controlled by the Sith, a force for darkness and a collection of power hungry madmen, though some were just simply after knowledge, others were after the power to control and dominate the galaxy. One of these Sith Lords was in control of the Separatists, Darth Tyranus, also known as Count Dooku, but he was however not the real master, he was only the apprentice to a much more powerful Sith Lord, the ever elusive Darth Sidious.

Onboard the Iowa class Fast Battleship Iowa, which was now in orbit of Coruscant along with its battle worn battlegroup, Doctor Catherine Halsey was studying the recent ONI Intelligence reports on the Clone Wars in the comfort of her recently assigned quarters, she had an exceptionally high clearance due to her involvement in the Spartan II and the new Spartan IV projects, and now after three months since the official First Contact with the Galactic Republic the war was soon heading towards its projected conclusion.

The UNSC had struck hard and fast at several Separatist holdings throughout the galaxy, mostly shipyards and various munitions depots, cutting off vital supplies from the front. They had also hit as many of the droid factories as possible that produced battle droids for the Separatist military. The latest attack on a droid foundry on Mygeeto was spearheaded by the legendary Spartan Blue Team who had just returned from combat for some R&R on Coruscant, though Doctor Halsey had asked them to meet with her first on the Iowa. The good doctor smiled as she read her Spartans after action report, they had torn through the tin cans that the Separatists used for combat like they were nothing, set the small 'clean' Fury tactical nuke and blew it sky high with no losses of any of her Spartans, which in her opinion was always a good thing.

From the door controls embedded into the wall next to the entrance of her quarter a beeping sounded, someone had rung the doorbell.

"Enter," she responded and soon four towering giants in Mjolnir mark VII armour, though two were slightly smaller and more feminine, and they were all wearing their trademark helmets.

"Okay all of you, please take off your helmets, and that includes you too Linda," she said, looking sharply at the smallest of the two female Spartans. They all took off their helmets quickly, their enhanced speed and strength most evident, the fastest was Kelly-087 with brown hair with natural red highlights and striking blue eyes, with Fred-104 and John-117 following shortly after, while Linda reluctantly pulled hers off, revealing her blood red hair and bright green eyes.

"I'm sure you're all wondering why I asked for you to meet me here as soon as you arrived." She pulled open a small drawer from her desk and brought out four small data crystal chips, similar to what were used to house a Smart AI, though each one had a slightly different colour and a number, which matched the number designation of each of the Spartans before Halsey.

"Within these data crystals are the Smart AI that you will each carry. So far only Blue Team will have a Smart AI for each Spartan, as the last surviving Spartan IIs you have more than earned the right to carry them into battle, and each has been specifically made with each of you in mind," she said and the Spartans took a closer look at the crystals before them, each were coloured differently, matching the colour of the Spartans armour. Linda's was coloured blood red, the same as her hair and her armour, though this didn't really affect her camouflage system built into her armour, basically the same but updated photo-reactive panels found on the Spartan IIIs SPI armour.

The one with Fred's number was a shimmering grey colour, same as his armour, though somehow it also seemed to glow. Kelly's own was a bright green, the same as her eyes, while John's was glowing blue and purple and seemed to shift between the two, in contrast to his dark green digital patterned camouflaged armour.

"I believe that you will be pleasantly surprised by yours John," said Halsey as John picked it up and inserted the crystal into the data crystal port on her desk. Seconds later a hologram of a blue woman covered in only lines of code appeared, seemingly crouched in midair in the fetal position, seemingly sleeping, then she stretched out, stood tall and opened her sparkling eyes.

"Hello John, long time no see," she said cheekily.

The Master Chief was astonished, for the first time in a long time he was near speechless, only the slight widening of the eyes betrayed his emotions, and Kelly walked up to him and put a comforting had on his shoulder.

"How is this possible? You died, not long after the mission to capture the Shield World; we were all there to witness your death. Doctor Halsey I thought there was no way we could stop Cortana's rampancy and reverse the damage done to her by the Gravemind?"

"There wasn't, I had to let the rampancy run its course, she didn't survive, but just before she died I saved the memories of her experiences and her core programming, her essence you could say and the sum of her experiences. I managed to have her rebuilt and now here she is, and she also doesn't have the seven year lifespan limit anymore, if anything she'll certainly outlive me," said Doctor Halsey as she slumped back into her chair. Though she took good care of herself, and cryogenic suspension and the time dilation effect of being trapped inside the Onyx Shield World had effectively slowed and stopped her ageing, biologically she was in her late sixties, though from a twentieth century standpoint she looked to be in her early fifties. She still had another half century of life left in her, but age seemed to be catching up to her, no matter what she did.

"Both Cortana and you, my Spartans, are my legacy, and Cortana is the closest thing I have to a daughter, and I was not about to let her die after living such a short lifespan..."

Suddenly the Iowa was shaken hard and alarm claxons sounded throughout the ship. The Spartans began running for their personal locker room to get their weapons while Doctor Halsey began running for the ship's CIC, with John following her shortly after, equipping himself with only an assault rifle and a hand gun from the weapons locker while the rest of his team reported to their assigned battle station.

* * *

In the CIC of the Iowa the commanding officer for the UNSC task force operating inside Republic space, who had just entered was treated to a sight he had hoped would not happen for at least another few days. Admiral William Nimitz's task force had not yet completed resupply operations and almost a third of his crews were down on the planet on R&R.

"What the hell is going on?" the admiral barked.

"Admiral, Separatist warships just jumped into Coruscant orbit. The defence fleet is already mobilising, but the enemy outnumbers and outguns them nearly three to one in capital ships alone," answered Captain Jennifer Keyes. "We're currently recalling all ship personnel and are deploying our embarked ground forces to the planet and are coordinating with the GAR."

The admiral took a look at the disposition of his forces. Right now his entire task force was in a high parking point, but still inside the gravity well of the planet, which was hampering his task force's movements, all fifty ships of the UNSC, ranging in size from frigates to the massive Kitty Hawk super carrier.

"Have all fighter squadrons begin combat launches immediately, the enemy will soon be launching swarms of droid starfighters and I want our fighters out there doing what they do best," the admiral ordered, just as Spartan John-117 and Doctor Halsey entered the CIC.

"Master Chief, I was just about to call you, but Doctor Halsey you should stay in your quarters where it is safe."

"Admiral, there are over a thousand Separatist warships out there facing off against a little over four hundred Republic warships and fifty UNSC vessels, with all due respect Admiral Nimitz but I believe the CIC is the safest possible place for me and I may be able to lend you my knowledge and experience," she said as she raised her right hand to forestall any objection the admiral and captain had.

"Very well Doctor Halsey, you may stay here in the CIC," said the admiral reluctantly, knowing it was less trouble to let the good doctor stay than have security escort her out of the CIC, he still didn't like having a civilian right next to him, no more than any other soldier would.

* * *

Outside the battle was raging. The Home Fleet had been caught completely off guard, no one thought that the Separatists would launch a direct assault upon the capital, and no one had ever thought that the enemy could possibly commit so many ships to the battle. On the ground the GAR were preparing to face the enemy. A tall dark skinned man in Jedi robes was heading down to his fighter when he was approached by another Jedi, SaeSee Tiin.

"Master Windu, our boys and the UNSC are taking a beating up there," said Master Tiin.

"Take as many fighters as you can get up there and take command of our space forces, and coordinate with Admiral Nimitz, I'll handle the droids down here," replied Master Windu as they got to their Jedi Interceptors, Master Windu's a dark purple while Mater Tiin's was silver and green.

"May the Force be with you," said Master Windu.

"And with you," replied Master Tiin as they sealed their cockpits and took to the skies. Master Tiin was followed by almost a hundred squadrons' worth of ARC-170 starfighters and V-wing interceptors and pushed for space. As they broke out of the atmosphere Master Tiin looked over the battlefield with an experienced eye. The UNSC task force was holding out along with several Republic battle groups, mutually supporting each other with heavy weapons fire, though to his horror he saw and enemy Providence class cruiser come out of hyperspace only to crash directly into a Venator class cruiser dead centre and split in two, the Providence cruiser ploughed through the wreckage, its bow extremely damaged, and it command crew most likely dead as the cruiser continued straight for Coruscant and nosed straight down into the atmosphere, the planetary defence guns quickly shredded it before impact, leaving what was left to burn up in the atmosphere.

Master Tiin quickly spotted a squadron of enemy bombers escorted by another three squadrons of droid starfighters. He checked his scopes and found he had two squadrons of ARC-170s available.

"Talon and Claw squadrons, form up on me, we're going to take out some droid bombers and their escorts," he ordered.

"We're on our way General. Lock S-foils in attack position," the commander of Talon squadron replied and the two squadrons formed up behind Master Tiin's fighter.

Two of the droid starfighter squadrons peeled off from escorting the bombers and moved to intercept Master Tiin and his two squadrons. The two sides quickly clashed together in a firestorm of laser fire, the clones were almost all dead on target, blasting several droid fighters away before they could react. Master Tiin blasted his way through the droids and continued on to his objective, his squadrons keeping in a loose formation and allowed the droids to pass between them, letting their tail gunners get some hits in.

The droid Hyena bombers were soon on final approach to their target, the UNSC Essex class carrier Ranger, and they had a deadly payload of anti-ship grade proton torpedoes to unload into her. The last squadron accelerated forward to distract the Ranger's point defence systems while the bombers opened their launch tubes, their mass accelerators ready to fling out their deadly payloads.

Master Tiin closed quickly with the bombers and launched a pair of concussion missiles at the two leading Hyenas, hoping to take out a few more with their debris, but the Hyenas saw it in time and launched countermeasures, two small pods deployed and detonated, scattering shrapnel in the missiles path and they detonated prematurely. Master Tiin quickly took action and pressed down hard on the firing triggers, unleashing a storm of green energy from his blaster cannons, taking the bombers down quickly one by one as he shifted his fire, but he was too late. Five of the twelve launched their entire complements of proton torpedoes before he could get them and they sped off towards their target. The Ranger's own point defences opened up with rapid fire gatling laser cannons, but the torpedoes were so small and fast and the Ranger's AI had several thousand more tasks and targets to deal with that two of them slipped through and impacted the shields. The shield glowed golden and rippled in waves as the torpedoes hit, adding to the hundreds of pinpricks that the Ranger had been hit with in the past hour of combat.

Master Tiin blew a sigh of relief then continued on his hunt for more droids to scrap, fighting his way across the battle field that was Coruscant orbit, and soon found his old command ship, the Undaunted, and it was mostly intact, though it was obviously out of the fight with its main turbolaser batteries blasted away, and several decks exposed to space, including the Command Bridge. He flew into the main launch bay and quickly found the highest ranking officer on the ship.

"General, the ship is lost sir," said the clone commander.

"It's time we got another ship," said the Jedi Master. "Have all combat capable clones don full armour and thruster packs, we're going to be taking this enemy ship," he said as he accessed one of the computer terminals, quickly finding a Providence class cruiser just begging to be taken off of the Separatists hands.

Very soon every clone trooper was in armour and waiting underneath the doors of the main launch bay, their Jedi General just putting on his combat EVA helmet, customized for his species.

"Prepare to board," he ordered and the clones readied their rifles. As the cruiser passed them by, their guns silent since they didn't regard the Undaunted as a viable threat, its own guns silenced by enemy fire, the Undaunted's main launch bay doors opened up, revealing an army of clones ready to deploy.

With a single leap into the void the Jedi general began his attack; his loyal troopers following close behind him with thruster packs. In mid-flight he activated his green lightsabre and aimed straight for the closest section to the enemy warship's bridge. A few moments before the first clones touched down onto the hull the cruiser began firing its point defence laser cannons, killing several dozen in seconds, but hundreds more came flying in and magnetized their boots to the hull. Master Tiin immediately cut a circular man sized hole in the hull then jumped in, followed by several more clones. Like a whirlwind he swooped in a cut to pieces several battle droids as he dashed forward towards the bridge, cutting down any droids in his path, his clone troopers quickly following in right behind him.

He quickly reached the bridge and systematically decimated the droid crew and had the clones take care of the organic neimoidian captain; a sharp hit to the back of the head by a blaster put him effectively out of action. He quickly had the ship's point defence guns stop firing on his troops and instead opened fire on the enemy droid fighters, and aimed the ship's main guns on the closest enemy warship, another Providence class cruiser that was engaged against a pair of UNSC frigates and was steadily losing its shields. As soon as the cruiser's shields were down he opened up with a full broadside, blasting away at the cruiser's exposed hull as the clones continued to secure his new ship, blasting every droid onboard into scrap. With three short volleys from the ship's main guns the enemy cruiser was crippled, the two UNSC frigates unleashed a hail of Longbow missiles, a signature move of the UNSC, and finished off the cruiser, then fell back into formation with the rest of the task force.

* * *

On the ground things were starting to get messy. Tens of thousands of battle droids had landed on the city planet and the skies were plagued by droid fighters, filling the sky like locusts and shooting anything that moves, including helpless civilians. In the streets of Coruscant clones and battle droids clashed, the mechanical monstrosities pushing into Republic lines with mechanical precision and lethality, while the clones held the line and fought with strength, determination and a passion that gave them a slight edge over their droid counterparts, but they weren't the only ones resisting the droid armies on the ground.

From above hundreds of Pelican gunships came swooping in, unleashing a hail of weapons fire from their chin mounted triple barrelled spinning laser cannons and ripples of missiles, clearing away a landing zone and began landing their troops. They lightly touched down; the troops quickly dismounted from their gunships and took up positions on the firing line, allowing several wounded clones to pull back as the marines provided covering fire as the gunships lifted off again into the sky and provided some much needed support.

From the cockpit of an Albatross landing ship Colonel Walter Watanabe watched as the first platoons secured a landing zone for his small army of marines that were coming down to Coruscant. In mere moments his Albatross transport and mobile command centre touched down, and his troops disembarked, entering the action and began to drive off the enemy droid army.

Also deploying from the Albatrosses were several Challenger VII MBTs, the replacement for the recently retired Grizzly MBT. It had the same basic tread and body design as the Scorpion, but its turret was placed near dead centre, more reminiscent of the tanks of the 20th century, was also larger and required a crew of three, a tank commander, a gunner and a driver. The tank's main gun was a 120 mm hyper-velocity railgun capable of accelerating a one kilo projectile to mach 10, and for secondary weapons it had a turreted six barrel rotary blaster cannon, or simply known as the chaingun to the tank drivers, on top of the turret and a slightly more powerful single barrel light laser cannon mounted coaxially next to the main gun. To the rear of the turret was a pair of missile pods for long range bombardment or anti-air, which gave the new Challenger an impressive combat capability far above the older Scorpions or Grizzlies.

Colonel Watanabe left the cockpit of his command post Albatross and headed down to the command & control level where several officers were pouring over information being transmitted to them via the battle-net from both the troops on the ground and from scans made from ships in orbit, with a single Smart AI sifting through all the information and providing the most pertinent information to the soldiers in the field.

"What's the status of Republic forces?" the colonel asked.

"They've been hit hard, there has been a severe amount of casualties, both military and civilian, but their fighting back now, the Jedi are really doing a number on the droid army," a lieutenant reported.

"Have our force move to engage the enemy, Major Reynolds I assume your tanks are ready to go?" the general asked over the battle-net.

"My tanks are ready to get some sir, just tell us where you need us," said Major Malcolm Reynolds from his own customized Command Challenger MBT, an otherwise standard Challenger VII, except for its custom paintjob of digital patterned camouflage and a scorecard on its right hand side depicting several dozen really good kills, including oddly enough a droid landing craft, a score it had earned when it had managed to get a shot straight into the ship's disembarkation area and managed to hit the internal fuel tanks of the transport, causing a chain reaction that destroyed it.

"Very good Major, move your tanks into position at this bridge and engage the enemy with long range fire, take the pressure off of the clones while they regroup and counter attack," said the Colonel.

"Yes sir," said the Major with much enthusiasm. A second later over a hundred tanks began rolling forward towards the battle line, the streets wide enough for four tanks to roll side by side, the marines following behind them, using the tanks as shields from enemy fire, the tanks rolling over the broken forms of enemy war machinery without a care in the world.

The Major sighted a number of enemies through his scopes and gave a wide grin.

"Big bunch of tangos, going loud on the chaingun," he said as he took control of the chain gun atop of the turret and started blasting away, tearing through the lines of droids in seconds then he sighted an enemy battle tank about to open fire.

"Gunner, enemy tank sighted, eleven o'clock, range five hundred meters, take it out."

"Roger that, arming with AP round, target acquired," said the gunner as the tank's auto-loader armed the tank's gun with the chosen ordinance. "Fire in the hole." With a loud boom the AP round left the muzzle of the gun at mach ten, created a short lived sonic boom and hit the enemy AAT tank, punched through its armour and hit its fuel cell, causing it to blow up and took with it several dozen B1 and B2 battle droids that were too close.

An anti-air threat alarm sounded suddenly and the Major took a few precious seconds to look at his radar screen.

"Oh shit, all tanks incoming missiles, reset your chainguns to anti-air mode, take them out," Major Reynolds ordered over the radio as several hundred missiles came flying in straight for the tanks. With surprising speed the chainguns on every tank on the battlefield turned to aim up into the sky, locked on to a bunch of missiles and let rip with a hail of blaster fire, gunning down hundreds of missiles in seconds, but a few managed to get through, only to impact the strong hull hugging energy shields of the tanks, shimmering golden as they hit, rippling like water, but not all of them were so fortunate.

One tank at the front, right next to the Major's tank, lost its energy shield to the missile barrage, leaving it open to an attack from the front, a battle droid with a rocket launcher. It fired and a tank buster rocket crossed the airspace between the droid and the Challenger VII and hit the forward right tread pod, crippling it and holding up its part of the column.

"This is Lacrosse 4, one of those droid bastards took out one of our tread pods, we've lost some mobility but are still combat capable, but recommend that we return to base to replace the pod," said the commander of the stricken tank.

"Copy that Lacrosse 4, move over to the side of the street and provide some artillery support from there while you wait for a repair crews to get to you," the major responded, watching on his scope as Lacrosse 4 moved to the side of the street, near continuously blasting away with its chaingun and light laser cannon with the occasional shot fired from its hypervelocity cannon that destroyed any heavy enemy vehicle it hit.

At a bridge not too far away from the UNSC marines tank column an infantry battalion of clones were trying to hold the bridge, with little success as they were slowly pushed back. The Clone Commander in charge in red patterned armour along with his men were blasting droids left, right and centre, but they just kept on coming in an ever growing tide. He soon saw no choice but to retreat.

"Fall back, fall back," he ordered, just as Master Yoda came jumping over their heads, lightsabre in hand.

"Hold you position," the Jedi High General ordered and he cut deeply into the droids lines, giving the clones hope, as he went on to chop up dozens, then hundreds of droids. As he battled the droids a vulture droid came careening through the air with Mace Windu perched on top of it, his had entangled in the fighter's wiring. He let go and dropped to the ground, the vulture droid having lost its guiding intelligence crashed in the droid army and split the droid advance in two, yet the battle droids continued forwards.

The two Jedi teamed up and with their lightsabres and the Force they managed to hold the line and even pushed back the droids with a combined Force push, shoving the droids away from them and over the sides of the bridge. Soon after the UNSC tanks arrived, all guns blazing with a massive barrage of weapons fire, which overwhelmed the droid army as they attempted to regroup after the Jedi's attack, forcing the droids even further back.

Major Reynolds sighted a tall sphere-like droid with four long legs and laser cannons on the top and bottom of its body, with several missile launching wheel droids following behind.

"Big spider, twelve o'clock, hit its central body," he ordered his gunner, with a loud boom the hypervelocity gun fired and the round punched straight through its thin armour and hit a wheel droid that was trying to use the spider droid as cover, blasting away its right side wheel and crashed down to the ground, its missile rack hit the ground and ignited the missiles engines, aiming straight down it destroyed itself in a conflagration of fire, along with several others of its kind that were too close.

"Yes, buy one, get several free," Reynolds cheered his gunner and slapped him on his combat helmet.

* * *

In an office well outside the combat area an old man in elegant, but simple, robes was drinking a cup of hot caf, watching over the battle as it unfolded and all of his plans unfolding just as he had foreseen, though he had to modify his plans slightly to accommodate the new player in the field.

His doorbell rang and he allowed them entry, a trio of Jedi, a Togrutan, an Ithorian and a Talz along with a squad of clone troopers rushed in.

"Chancellor we must get you to safety," said Jedi Master Shaak Ti urgently.

"But the battle is so far away, and our forces as well as our allies seem to be defeating them," said the Chancellor, seemingly without a care in the world.

"Chancellor we must follow protocol and get you into your secured bunker," Shaak Ti tried again.

"I will not be chased away from my place of residence by a bunch of Separatist thugs..."

A deep growling sound was soon heard, the Jedi and the clones, along with the Chancellor's guards, tried to place the sound, but couldn't quite do it, but it seemed to give Master Ti the shivers, then with a horrified gasp she shouted, "We must leave, NOW."

It suddenly stopped; the Chancellor's residence in near complete silence, only the sounds of battle in the far distance was heard.

"There, you see, nothing to be worried about," said the Chancellor cheerfully.

With a mighty crash a tall being busted straight through the Chancellor's window and stood challengingly in front of the Chancellor and his guards.

"I have been looking forward to this, Jedi, and nice to see you again Master Shaak Ti, this time I will finish what I started on Hypori," said General Grievous, one of the galaxy's most feared generals and war criminals of the Clone Wars.

* * *

The battle on the streets of Coruscant was soon coming to an end. The droid army had quickly lost too many droids and were now being decimated by both the GAR and UNSC reinforcements that had just arrived from the Outer Rim Sieges. Jedi masters Windu and Yoda had moved away from the centre of battle to Colonel Watanabe's Albatross Command Centre. Using the command centre's holo-tank to get a general overview of both the battle on the ground and the battle in space, the two Jedi Generals suddenly felt something was wrong. They looked at each other and Yoda gave his quiet assent.

"Colonel, may I trouble you for a squad of your marines and one of your gunships?" Master Windu asked.

"Why?" the colonel asked suspiciously.

"A disturbance in the Force," Windu answered directly.

"Senses tingling?" the colonel asked a little sceptically and the Jedi Master responded with only a raised eyebrow. The colonel nodded. "Lieutenant, are there any ODST squads available?" he asked one of his aides.

"Yes sir, Dino Squad is returning to base now aboard Pelican D48 escorted by a pair of Sparrowhawk gunships, they read as fully combat capable and have only just been resupplied, they should be here in seconds," said the aide. Master Windu raised both his eyebrows in surprise and the colonel merely said, "I served alongside one of your knights on Ryloth when we broke the Separatist blockade and liberated the planet, he saved my life quite a few times in that hellhole and I've learned the hard way to trust you Jedi's instincts," he explained.

Master Windu could only bow in gratitude then set off outside well before the sounds of a Pelican, along with a pair of Sparrowhawks, coming in for landing, the Jedi master ran up its briefly open rear ramp then it dusted off seconds later, its escort following in close formation. He ran past the bewildered ODST squad and up to the cockpit.

"Pilot, fly in that direction at best possible speed," he ordered.

"Sir?" the pilot of the gunship asked the commanding officer of the ODST squad, 1st Lieutenant Alfred Higgins.

"Follow the general's orders, I just got word from local base command to follow this Jedi's every order, within reason, now fly damn it!"

Properly chastised the pilot gunned his Pelican's engines and flew hard and fast past the thousands of Coruscant Skyscrapers. They soon came in sight of a small ship on a landing platform, just above the entrance to Chancellor Palpatine's reinforced bunker, and Palpatine was being forced up the ramp and into the ship by a pair of Magna droids with General Grievous following close behind. The ship fired upon the Pelican and its escorts, their pilots pulling every trick they could to avoid being shot down, but the Pelican got hit twice on the starboard wing, damaging its wing mounted engine assembly and sending it careening down.

"You've got to bail out folks, I don't know how long I can keep this thing in the air, good luck," the pilot said as the co-pilot opened the rear hatch. The ODSTs and the Jedi general jumped out, the ODSTs used their built in thruster packs to slow down, a recent addition to the ODST armour's repertoire, while Master Windu used the Force to slow his descent, and they all landed hard but safely onto the ground.

Surprised by the Jedi and ODST squad's arrival General Grievous span around and drew his four lightsabres only to suddenly feel something crushing his metal frame as if caught in a huge vice and began crushing what was left of his internal organs, he was forced to make a quick withdrawal into his ship and it quickly lifted off. The two Sparrowhawks tried to disable the small ship, but to no avail as it fired its turrets at them again then blasted its way out of the atmosphere and escaped into space.

"Damn it," said Higgins as he got on the comm. to local HQ, telling them what had just transpired. The Jedi general could only narrow his eyes in disappointment, then ran off down to the Chancellor's bunker, the ODSTs following shortly after him. Several hundred meters down and past several metres thick blast doors they soon reached the inner sanctum of the bunker where they found the Chancellor's three Jedi protectors, two dead, one tied to the ceiling with electrified wiring, keeping her in constant pain.

"I failed," said Shaak Ti in despair and then fell unconscious. Master Windu quickly cut her down and with a gentle manipulation of the Force removed the electrified ropes as the ODST medic moved forward and assessed her condition.

* * *

On General Grievous' shuttle Chancellor Palpatine remained stoic and stone faced, but on the inside he was smiling in satisfaction. Everything was proceeding according to his design, even the arrival of the UNSC and their contribution to the war had been though unexpected, he had managed to keep them in the dark more or less, and soon the final act of this war would come and the Sith's revenge upon the Jedi would be complete, and he would have a new apprentice, one far younger and vastly more powerful than his current one.

* * *

AN: I hope my readers found this to your liking, I'm surprised that I managed to get this down so quickly. Any thoughts, criticisms, please share them in a review.


	10. Chapter 9

**Sword of Change**

**Chapter 9**

The battle in space for Coruscant was raging as hot as the fires of hell, and the orbit of Coruscant was littered with the broken hulls of the destroyed or crippled vessels of the Separatists and the Republic, as well as a small minority of UNSC vessels, seven frigates and a pair of destroyers had so far been taken out and Admiral Nimitz was saddened at their loss, the only good thing was that most of their crews managed to escape in time, but it was still a blow to his battle group's fighting strength.

His flagship shook again as a flurry of heavy turbolaser shots hit them; the energy of the blasts was felt even through the highly reinforced shields.

"Trio of enemy frigates closing fast on our starboard aft quarter," Surge, the ship's resident Smart AI, reported.

"Destroyers Bull Run and Rolling Thunder, move to intercept enemy frigates," the admiral ordered, they were the two closest vessels he could vector in quickly enough to take them out.

In a show of surprising agility and speed the two destroyers turned around and faced the enemy, priming their MAC guns for firing as they turned. Their opening move on these targets was the launching of several Longbow missiles from their pods. With both massive kinetic and explosive energy they impacted the frigates, drastically dropping their shields strength. As the frigates closed range with the destroyers they opened up with a fury of turbolaser fire, showering the two destroyers in red energetic fury, which was responded to by a single 600 ton MAC shell from each gun on the two destroyers. The first shot took down their shields, the second gutted both from stem to stern and they immolated themselves when their reactors went critical. The third and final frigate died in a hail of blue turbolaser from both destroyers, ending the attack.

"What's our shield status?" Captain Jennifer Keyes asked.

"Shields at 50% and holding for now," Surge reported. "Now that we are currently not under continuous fire the shields should be able to recharge, but not if the Separatists continue to single us out."

It was true, most of the Separatist weapons fire had been directed at the UNSC battle group in parking orbit, after they had blasted their way through the Home Fleet, and even after the Open Circle Armada had arrived the battle group was still receiving a large share of the Separatists attention.

Making a decision the Admiral opened a channel.

"To all UNSC Navy ships, pull back to the following coordinates, fighting retreat back towards the planetary defence grid, then prepare for a full fleet wide Alpha Strike on the enemy. Fighters, continue to engage targets of opportunity, but don't stray too far." He cut the fleet wide channel.

"Sir, we just got a flash message from the ground, General Grievous has just captured the Supreme Chancellor and has just taken him aboard his flagship, the Invisible Hand. Jedi Generals Kenobi and Skywalker are being sent to rescue the Chancellor," said Surge.

The admiral frowned at the misallocation of resources by the Jedi, sending in a pair of generals when it should have been a Special Forces team that should go in and rescue the chancellor, though he could understand why they were being sent in, Jedi are almost as good as ODSTs, and those two were amongst the most successful field commanders and warriors they had.

"Tell the Spartans to launch on their booster frames, they are to escort the Jedi in, board Invisible Hand and rescue the chancellor," the admiral ordered.

"Sir, Spartan team reports ready and launching in five seconds," reported a crewman.

* * *

On the underside of the Iowa a broad set of rectangular hangar bay doors opened, within the hangar four Spartan IIs sat strapped into their rides for this fight, four heavily armed EVA booster frames, hanging in their launch cradles and just waiting to be unleashed upon the enemy. From an overhead observation window Doctor Halsey watched her Spartans get lowered down into open space. She tapped a comm. panel on the wall and said simply, _"God speed,"_ and turned it off, just before they ignited their booster frames engines, powerful blue burning ion plasma rockets accelerated them rapidly away from the Iowa and straight into combat, flying in a standard UNSC four fingered formation, the Master Chief in the lead.

"I almost forgot how much of a thrill this was," said Kelly, enjoying the absolute freedom of flying, in contrast to the Master Chief who only tolerated flying as a means to an end.

"Focus on the mission Kelly, we've got incoming fighters, optimize mobility," he quickly ordered as he extended his booster frame's wings, the rest following suit. "Fire at will," said the chief as he let two cluster missiles off from the launch racks on his ride's wings, accelerating rapidly, then, at the last possible second, the panels blew off and dozens of high explosive micro missiles rocketed away, taking out two whole squadrons of surprised droid fighters, who were one moment tracking only two missiles which suddenly turned into dozens, which tore them apart, the other Spartans followed suit as they opened fire with their own mounted weaponry, blasting their way through the droid squadrons and closed in on their targets.

From above a pair of Jedi Interceptors, one in red and white the other in gold, watched as what seemed to be droids on over-gunned swoop bikes, until the one in the gold coloured Interceptor recognized them for what they are.

"Master, those are UNSC Spartans, what are they doing here, I thought they were participating in the Outer Rim Sieges?" Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker asked his former master.

"I don't know, but judging by their course I'd say they're on the same mission as us," answered Obi Wan Kenobi as he projected the Spartans course of destruction, spinning and rolling around as they raced passed a Separatist frigate, unleashing a number of their powerful cluster missiles as they passed.

"Well if they're on the same mission then I believe I shall go and help them out," said Anakin as he gunned his fighters engines into the red, accelerating hard after the Spartans.

"Hold on Anakin..." Master Kenobi tried to rein in his former padawan, but he knew it would be futile.

"Oddball, do you copy?" he asked over the fighter frequency.

"_Copy Red Leader,"_ clone squad leader Oddball answered.

"Mark my position and form up on my wing."

"_We're on your tail General Kenobi,"_ Oddball answered and brought his squadron of ARC 170s behind the general and set their S-foils into attack position, General Kenobi did the same as they formed up behind him.

Several kilometres ahead Anakin had caught up with the Spartans and was providing some much appreciated support to the four Spartan IIs.

"_Pilot in the yellow Jedi Interceptor, target is straight ahead, the cruiser covered in Vulture droids,"_ said Kelly as she blasted her way through a trio of droid tri-fighters.

"Got it," Anakin replied as he rolled to avoid a pair of incoming concussion missiles, and fired a quick burst from his laser cannons that destroyed another droid star fighter.

"Master, Grievous' ship is straight ahead, the one crawling with Vulture droids," he relayed to his former master.

"I heard, this is going to be easy," the general sarcastically responded as he and Oddball's squadron managed to catch up with Anakin and the Spartans.

On the surface of the Invisible Hand hundreds of vulture droids lifted off from their standing guard posture and rose up to meet the incoming threat.

"This is where the fun begins," said Anakin as he excitedly anticipated the fight to come.

"_Launching cluster missiles,"_ one of the Spartans, the Master Chief, warned and the Spartans each launched another pair of cluster missiles into the veritable cloud of droids that was quickly closing in. The missiles flew fast and true, and blew a wide hole in the droids ranks, but for every fighter destroyed there were still dozens more to take their place.

"Let them pass between us," General Kenobi advised. Seconds later the droids were upon them, coming at them head on, only to miss as the two groups flew past each other doing very little damage, the Jedi and Spartans continuing on with their mission while the droids banked sharply to catch up with them.

"They're all over me," said one of the clone pilots in a near panic as he tried to shake his tail, a pair of droid Trifighters which his tail gunner was having difficulty in taking out, when suddenly both exploded in massive fiery explosions.

"Nice kills," the pilot said happily.

"That wasn't me," said the gunner in momentary confusion as more of the enemy droid fighters that were trailing behind them got blown out of the sky by a rain of missiles. The gunner looked up and saw to his relief a squadron of Sabre II UNSC fighters breaking through the lines of droid fighters.

"_Clone pilots, this is Commander Julia Jimenez, call sign Hell Cat, don't worry, Howler squadron has your backs," _said the UNSC squadron commander and CAG of the escort carrier Ranger. _"Gentlemen and ladies, let's clear the road,"_ she called over the squadron frequency and she and her squadron let loose a massive barrage of missiles and laser cannon fire on the enemy, clearing away the droid fighters chasing the clones, then the Howlers took up flanking positions alongside the Spartans, blasting their way through the droids ranks, though not without cost.

With the suddenness of a lightning strike a lucky hit from a droid fighter's laser cannon pierced through one of the Sabre IIs main engines, just after the fighter in question got hit by enemy flack that had drained its shields and left it vulnerable, causing it to go up in a brief explosion, the fire from its fuel and oxygen tanks burned out quickly as the vacuum of space snuffed it out.

In her cockpit Commander Julia 'Hell Cat' Jimenez made a quick mental note of the loss and pushed it to the back of her mind, there would be time to mourn later, right now they had a mission to complete, and that was to destroy as many of these mechanical bastards as possible and make sure as many of her people came home alive, she had already lost three of her squadron mates, she wasn't about to let the rest die.

"Loosen formation, split up two by two and don't get separated from your wingman, bandits twelve o'clock high, Howler 7 and 12 go after them, the rest stay on the Spartans and Jedi, keep them from getting overwhelmed," she quickly ordered over the squadron frequency, getting quick confirmation lights from the two fighters on her HUD.

Another wave of droid fighters came swooping in, this time in much larger numbers and were mostly top of the line droid Trifighters, blasting away with heavy laser cannons and mostly gunning for the UNSC fighter escorts and the clone fighters, though both responded to the attack with lethal passion, the Howlers and clones faced their opponents head-on with both laser cannons and missiles.

Hell Cat quickly selected from her fighter's remaining inventory of missiles and launched her final pair of Phoenix cluster missiles, magnetically launched from the internal launch bay the delivery vehicle accelerated hard, riding on a plume of plasma thrust, then seconds later seemed to explode into a veritable cloud of missiles, joined by several others, the squadron's last stock of Phoenixes, and thinned out the Trifighters numbers considerably, though still plenty got through.

"All fighters, accelerate hard burn now and execute cobra manoeuvres, shoot anything not squawking a friendly IFF," she ordered as she and her squadron gunned their engines and dodged and weaved through the enemy fire, letting loose what few remaining missiles were left in their missile pods. Hell Cat's eyes danced across the her HUD that covered her fighters 'windows,' small scanners in her helmet scanned the movement of her eyes and the targeting computer quickly interpreted and locked on to the fighters, circular targeting reticules appeared on the HUD and with a vicious smile she depressed her missile launch trigger.

"Howler 1, Fox 2," she called out over the squadron frequency, her remaining Meteor short range missiles left her missile pods and flew straight and true, each one claiming a hit, removing another threat from her skies, her squadron followed suit, and created what was affectionately called by UNSC pilots a missile spam that decimated the enemy squadrons, but there were still a lot of enemies left.

"Bingo missiles, switching to guns," she reported automatically as she began blasting away with her two gatling laser cannons, cutting a swath through the tridroids ranks and cleared a wide enough hole for the Spartans to make their move.

"_Sierra 117 to Hell Cat, thank you for the assist Howlers, we'll take it from here, get yourselves back to the Ranger,"_ said the Master Chief over the radio.

"Roger that," she called back as she pulled her fighter into a hard bank as two Trifighters got on her tail and tried to blast both her and her squad mate out of the sky.

"Groper, standby to break formation on my mark," she ordered shortly, a green confirmation light blinked on her HUD. "Break now, now, NOW," she called out as Groper pulled his fighter away from hers and she flipped her fighter over 180 degrees end over end and brought her fighter's nose pointed straight at her pursuer.

"Eat this," she said as she pulled the trigger, sending a fury of laser cannon fire that shredded the trifighter then she accelerated hard and got behind the fighter pursuing her wingman that was dodging and weaving like a madman to escape.

"Groper, Hell Cat, I'm on his tail but I need your help, turn left when I say so," she said over the radio, another confirmation light lighted on her HUD. She continued to dog the trifighter, but its course was too erratic for her to get anything but glancing blows as it continued to pursue her wingman. Finally she saw an opening.

"Turn left, now," she ordered and Groper complied, the turn exposed the trifighter's dorsal profile and she let loose with her laser cannons, sending a near constant stream of fire that blasted the mechanical monstrosity into its component atoms.

"_Thanks boss, that bastard nearly nailed me,"_ said Groper in sheer relief.

"Don't mention it. All Howlers let's return home, and let's get some R&R," she ordered.

"_Rest and relaxation?"_ one of the other pilots asked hopefully.

"No, reload and rearm," said Hell Cat, much to the dismay of her pilots, though they wouldn't complain, at least not much. They quickly disengaged and headed back to their carrier, gunning down a few more flying droids along the way.

* * *

Back with the Spartans and Jedi they were quickly closing in on the Invisible Hand and its large open hangar but there was a complication.

"The way is clear master, those UNSC pilots and our clones have cleared a path for us straight to Grievous' ship."

Anakin's droid, R2, gave a loud warning screech as it noticed a small problem.

"_Well have you noticed that the shields are still up?"_ Master Kenobi asked frantically.

"_Don't worry about it,"_ said the Master Chief.

"_Gauss cannons and missiles are ready, just sit back and watch the fireworks,"_ said one of the female Spartans, her IFF reading Sierra 087 Anakin read off his fighter's communications board.

As one the four Spartans lined up their targets, the hangar bay shield generators and the port side point defence guns.

"_Launch all remaining missiles,"_ the Master Chief ordered, their remaining missiles dropped from their launch racks and fired their motors, accelerating away from their EVA booster frames.

"_Gauss cannons, fire."_ As one they fired, each hitting a different section of the hangar's shield emitters, and hit at roughly the same time, hitting the Invisible Hand like a fist from an angry god. As the hangar bay depressurized large blast doors began slamming into place, quickly sealing off the hangar bay.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," said Master Kenobi and Fred 104 at the same time, just before the Spartans and Jedi barely slipped through the closing blast doors and began to slide across the deck of the ship's hangar, making instant road kill of dozens of unfortunate B1 battle droids, the Spartans and Jedi leaped off their rides and drew their weapons in midair, the Spartans went for their own respective weapons.

Kelly brought her AA22 automatic shotgun and ran forward; using her superior speed and manoeuvrability to get in range and blast them to scrap before the droids could react. Linda meanwhile had, while still in midair, drawn her favourite sniper rifle, and started shooting the droids at the far end of the hangar, while Fred and the Master Chief drew assault rifles from the magnetic strips on their backs, shooting as many as they could, though none of them could match the two Jedi Generals kill scores as they used their lightsabres and their Force assisted agility to take out the majority of the droids in the hangar.

With an electronic and mechanical groan the last B1 battle droid fell to the ground missing one of its arms and had a mighty big hole in its mechanical chest from a shotgun.

"R2 plug in and locate the Chancellor," said Master Skywalker shortly after shutting down his light sabre, though he still held it in his hand, ready for action.

"Hem hem, I believe that's my job," said a female voice which seemed to come from one of the male Spartans. The Spartan noticed the curious looks from the two Jedi and held out the palm of his left hand upright, and from it sprang a hologram of a female human who at first seemed nude, but on closer inspection had sensually placed dark strips of material that covered her chest and down to her privates, and was coloured in various shades of blue, with computer code flowing like water over her body.

"And you are?" Anakin probed.

"AI Cortana, sir. Serial Number CTN 0452-9."

"Ah," said Obi-Wan who wasn't sure how he could use another AI.

The Chief rescued his superior officer from further embarrassment. "Cortana, create ghost images of us in the enemy's surveillance systems. Confuse them. Oh, and disable their auto-turrets."

"You got it," said Cortana as she transferred herself into the ship's systems. "Hello, R2D2. You're a cute little midget robot, aren't you?"

Artoo whistled a response.

"You're rude, too."

"Cortana…" said the Chief, getting irritated.

"Already did what you wanted, Chief. There are currently twenty of us running around the ship, and a lot more enemy officers wondering what the hell is going on."

Obi-Wan examined the holographic display of Invisible Hand, courtesy of R2D2. "According to the Chancellor's distress beacon he is at the top of that spire, there on the observation deck."

"Where's Grievous?" Anakin asked.

"He's on the bridge," said Cortana. R2 displayed a holographic image of the droid general pacing around the bridge and generally terrorizing the bridge crew with his very presence.

"We need to make sure that this ship can't escape with the chancellor onboard," said Master Kenobi. "I suggest that that we split up, two of you Spartans head down to engineering and make sure that their hyperdrive is taken completely offline; just make sure not to blow up the ship with us still on it, the last two will join us and assist with rescuing the chancellor."

"Yes sir," responded the Master Chief. "Linda, Fred, you two head down to engineering, put those new AI's of yours to work on knocking out this ship's hyperdrive, one of them should be able to cause some havoc."

Underneath his helmet Fred smiled at getting the chance to put his new AI to the test.

"Why can't Cortana do it, she's already in the system?" Anakin asked.

"Because there isn't a proper link from here to the engineering system in the hangar bay, I've only been able to access their internal security systems and plant some misleading sensor ghosts and false trails for their droids to follow, and before you ask, no I cannot take control of the ship's droids unless someone gets me onto the ship's bridge, and that is extremely heavily guarded," Cortana mildly rebuffed.

Kelly quickly chimed in. "Besides our mission is to rescue the chancellor, we should focus on the mission, nothing more."

"Alright, alright," said Anakin, raising his arms slightly in surrender.

"We all know what to do?" Kenobi asked quickly, getting affirming nods from everyone. "Then let's go," he ordered and they set off down a long main corridor. As the two Jedi and four Spartans ran along the corridor they came across a number of droids. Fred and the Master Chief ran in front, raised their assault rifles and let rip with powerful streams of blue energy pulses, mowing down the squads of B1 battle droids in their path. They came to a T junction where Fred and Linda split off from the group and ran down to engineering, while the rest kept on running for the turbolifts underneath the spire.

Linda and Fred continued down into the bowels of the ship. They soon came to the entrance to engineering, where a squad of super battle droids stood guard with a pair of MagnaGuards with electro-staffs and blasters. The two Spartans took cover as the battle droids opened fire with their wrist mounted blasters, bright red pulses of energy raced straight towards them through the corridor, forcing them to duck, leaving behind smoking craters in the bulkheads where the blaster fire impacted.

Linda definitely felt completely out of her comfort zone, she was first and foremost a sniper, but she could handle this. She was a Spartan and they are at their best when they are being pushed. Keeping her trusty sniper rifle on her back harness she brought to bear one of her two blaster SMGs, popping out of cover for a split second to send a quick burst of fire that downed a battle droid with a tight cluster of headshots.

Fred meanwhile was exchanging fire with the battle droids with his own assault rifle, his suit's shields flickered golden as blaster fire impacted. Ducking into cover he loaded up the special forty millimetre grenade launcher slung beneath the barrel of his rifle with a high explosive shell.

"Cover me," he ordered Linda just before he was about to pop out of cover. Linda came out of cover and began dual wielding her two SMGs, sending out a fire storm of blue laser fire down range as Fred lined up the shot and launched the 40 millimetre grenade at the super battle droids, which landed right in the middle of them and exploded on impact, and tore them apart with both powerful concussive force and fast flying shrapnel which shredded them.

The only two droids left were the MagnaGuards, who quickly took the offensive and moved forward, blasting away at the two Spartans with their own weapons, and prepared to use their own weapon of choice for melee combat. Linda took a chance and opened fire with her own SMG, only to see her shots do little damage to their armour.

"Those tin cans have tough armour," she commented, and quickly began to draw her sniper rifle from her magnetized back harness.

One of the droids saw what she was doing, identified the weapons as a danger to itself and its fellow droid it rushed forward and charged with its electro staff set to full power, swinging the heavy phrik alloy staffs with ease as it ran and was about to strike down Linda when Fred intercepted the droid.

With a flick of his eyes he used the HUD controls in his helmet to eject a pair of combat knives from his upper arms. The blades glowed blue from the thin sheet of plasma that covered the laser sharpened blades and Fred crossed them and intercepted the MagaGuard's staff, deflected it and proceeded to remove the droids head with a lighting fast decapitation strike, while Linda fired her sniper rifle, sending an APHE round and hit the second droid in the torso, penetrating the thick armour and detonated, destroying the fragile internals.

To Fred's surprise the MagnaGuard he had just decapitated continued to fight, swinging its staff wildly and stabbed forward with one of its purple coloured electrified ends, and hit Fred straight in the chest, his shields took the brunt of the attack and made him stagger back. He rushed forward and proceeded to systematically cut off the droids hands off, then the legs and finally bisected the body, leaving it in a heap of spare parts.

"Linda get your AI to open the door for us if you please," Fred ordered, and Linda moved forward quickly to the door controls. Her arm pulsed with a golden electrical arc as her AI linked up with the door controls and worked its magic. Within a second the door opened up.

"You know, this opening of doors, though important, is a task so beneath my capabilities, I mean seriously, you could probably open it yourself almost as fast as I can," said Linda's AI.

Linda replied with was a simple sigh. "I really wish Doctor Halsey had programmed you to be more modest, Geraldine."

"I can't help who my donor brain belonged to, and you know how bored we AI get, particularly us young ones," the young Smart AI fired back.

"Come on you two, time's wasting," said Fred as they quickly entered engineering. Inside more droids were found, mostly maintenance droids, but also a number of B1 battle droids who stood guard in the engine room.

"Hey you halt," an OOM command battle droid ordered, before Linda took aim with her sniper rifle and hit it centre of mass, the APHE round detonated within, scattering pieces of the droid all over the place. More droids began to open fire on the two Spartans, forcing them to take cover as the blaster bolts came flying down at them. Fred immediately sighted a small squad of droids take up position on a metal catwalk, and switched up to his heavy weapon, a Spartan Laser. He popped out of cover and painted his target then the weapon charged up to full power, the mouth of the weapon glowing an ominous red then unleashed a powerful laser blast that destroyed the catwalk and the droids came crashing down with it.

"Linda, cover me while I insert Flint," he said as he quickly made his way over to one of the main consoles, while Linda covered him with accurate SMG fire, tearing apart entire squads within seconds.

Inside the Invisible Hand's main frame a short balding man clothed in animal hide formed, lines of blue gray code flowed over his avatar's body. "Fred I'm in," he reported simply enough then got to work.

"Good, start by causing as much damage as you can to the ship's hyperdrive, and try limiting it to the hyperdrive only, we're still aboard this ship and I have no intention of going down with it," said Fred harshly.

"Got it, though I think you should get out of the engine room PDQ, some of these systems I'm going to overload may cause some unforeseen side-effects, like big explosions," the Smart AI said lightly in his gruff voice as he began to take a virtual club to the lines of code that signified different primary and secondary systems for the hyperdrive, causing the system to go haywire.

In the real world small explosions began to erupt from various consoles and overhead plasma conduits, creating brief but extremely potent fireballs.

"Time to go," said Fred as he touched the console again and Flint came back to him, making Fred feel, for an instant, like someone poured liquid nitrogen down his spine.

"Ah home sweet home," the AI sighed happily as he took up residence again inside Fred's armour and nervous system.

Fred ignored the comment as he and Linda began to retreat out of the engine room, only to have their way blocked by a group of four B1-A air battle droids, looking much like a regular B1 battle droid, only a bit more bulky with slightly thicker armour and a repulsor pack on their backs. They all had some type of energy shield up projected from their left gauntlet, similar to jackal shield gauntlet. All four poked their right arms through the shield and fired their wrist mounted blasters, forcing the two Spartans to get into cover as their shields took the brunt of the attack in the first second before they got to cover. Two of the droids rushed forward, their wrist mounted vibroblades extended and attempted to rush the Spartans, forcing both to raise their arms to block their strikes, their Mjolnir armour's energy shields took the strikes easily.

With a quick eye movement, Linda used her HUD controls to manipulate her shields form, a trio of beam claws extended from each of her hands, one arm blocking both of the droid's vibroblades while the other cleaved through the droid, from the crotch, through the core of the body and straight through the head.

Fred meanwhile ejected again his own combat knives from his arm holsters and parried his opponent's strike and quickly dealt a decapitation strike, then a strike at the body, piercing the droid's battery, leaving it powerless and quickly began to overload. With a snap kick the droid was pushed hard into the two last air battle droids, and exploded with great force, the blast pushed the two droids into the sides of the open door.

Linda quickly drew her two blaster SMGs and promptly tore the two apart with a fury of blue blaster fire, reducing them to carbon scored heaps of scrap metal in seconds. Another explosion ripped through the engine room and the two Spartans ran out of the engine room at full sprint, quickly reaching 50 kilometres per hour, just ahead of the explosions. As they passed the doors Linda's Smart AI remotely closed the blast doors, containing the explosions within the engine room, and they continued to sprint of several hundred metres before slowing down slightly.

"I hope the others didn't have as such a hard time as we did," said Fred as they ran through the corridors, heading back up to catch up with the other team.

* * *

AN: Sorry for the long wait, hope my readers enjoy this latest chapter.


	11. Chapter 10

**Sword of Change**

**Chapter 10**

**Separatist flagship, Invisible Hand**

BANG, BANG, BANG sounded Kelly's AA22 rapid fire shotgun as she pumped three HE rounds into three separate grapple droids as they tried to close in on her and the Jedi, she definitely did not want to get caught in those things bone crushing embrace again, having had to struggle with one only minutes earlier as it dropped on top of her while she and Anakin were inside the turbo shaft outside the turbo lift car they and the Jedi were riding to the top of the spire. After dispatching of the three grapple droids she scanned the surrounding area through her EVA helmet, thankful for the full field of vision provided by her helmet's visor as she scanned for more targets, keeping a lookout for anything coming from the sides or above, looking for any more battle droids that might come dropping in, but she was in for a surprise.

From below the rapidly rising turbolift several buzz droids came rolling up the side of the car they were standing on top of, and rolled across the roof of the car almost too fast for Kelly to react. She heard them rolling onto the roof with their tiny thruster jets, and Spartan Time neatly kicked in, and the world slowed down around her and in one quick motion she brought her shotgun to bear, but before she could fire Anakin intercepted the little annoying buzz droid with his lightsabre, which neatly sliced it in two, and time began to speed back up again to normal as Anakin sliced more of the annoying little droids as they tried to swarm them.

Kelly then switched to another target, an incoming air battle droid that was coming down along with another dozen of its brethren coming in hot on its heels behind it, blasting at them from their high-flying vantage point, and there was no cover to be had on the roof of the turbolift car. She blasted the droid away with a solid shotgun slug, which tore through the its armour and pierced its battery and repulsorlift pack, causing it to explode in the midst of the other droids, which sent the two of them flying into the walls and were turned into instant scrap metal, the rest was shaken but not deterred as they came at them again.

"Do these damn things ever give up?" she said to herself in frustration.

"They're thoughtless automatons, no more advanced than standard Dumb AIs," said her onboard Smart AI Dove, her avatar being a young woman in a sundress with green and white coding flowing over her surface.

"I know that, I just wish John was up here with his assault rifle," Kelly shot back as she switched from her shotgun, which she attached to her back harness, to a pair of SMG blasters from her thigh holsters. More and more buzz droids kept coming up the sides of the car, and she and Anakin were being pressed hard.

"You know there was only just enough room up here for you and the Jedi, having John up here would have crowded the roof and you'd be barely able to move," Dove rebutted as Kelly dual wielded her SMGs, tearing apart the buzz droids with ease. So much like grunts, they tried to overwhelm the two with numbers, but unlike the grunts she'd fought in the past these were emotionless automatons which would not run away in fear.

More blaster fire rained down on the both of them as more air battle droids came soaring down on their repulsor packs, Anakin covered Kelly with his lightsabre, blocking the incoming blaster bolts as the turbolift soared up the shaft towards the observation platform, while she used her SMGs to blast more of the droids into scrap metal, however that only worked on the buzz droids. The air battle droids used their built-in shield gauntlets on their left wrists to shield themselves from the return fire, and much as they did with Linda and Fred they poked their opposite arms through the shields and blasted away.

"This is getting ridiculous," said Kelly in exasperation. Quickly she returned her SMGs to her thigh holsters then drew her UNSC MA7A assault rifle, which was similar in appearance to the retired MA5 series, but instead of bullets it fires high velocity blue plasma rounds at 700 rounds per minute with an effective range of 800 metres. The rifle synced up with her armour's computer system, providing it with up-to-date targeting data which was displayed on her helmet's HUD.

Once again Spartan Time kicked in for her, she sighted her targets, and aimed her assault rifle at the air battle droids wrist mounted blasters. She lightly depressed the trigger and three rounds of blue plasma were rapidly accelerated out the barrel of the weapon, then she calmly shifted her aim to the next target, aimed and fired, then the next, not waiting to confirm that she had hit her targets, she already knew she had hit them, the rounds just hadn't impacted their targets yet. She repeated this until all of the droids wrist mounted blasters had been hit and subsequently destroyed forcing them to use the blasters on their left wrists and power down their shield gauntlets, which left them open for her coup de grace. As soon as the droids powered down their shields she opened up on them with her rifle set to full auto, and tore them apart.

Anakin, not to be outdone, took the opportunity to grab one with the Force and pulled it towards himself and promptly sliced it into small pieces, the remains of the droids fell down into the deep dark chasm of the turbolift shaft.

"We are about to reach our destination, I suggest we all get back inside before we get crushed between the car and the ceiling," said Dove both through the internal and external speakers in and on Kelly's helmet. The two of them looked up and could see the ceiling coming ever closer as the turbolift raced upwards at high speed. Surprising Anakin with her extreme strength and reflexes, though she held back a little, she grabbed him by the scruff of his robes and unceremoniously tossed him back inside the turbolift car and jumped in right behind him.

Surprised by the two's entrance both Obi Wan and the Chief raised their weapons." Oh it's you two, where have you been?" Obi Wan asked.

"Keeping this turbolift car from being shot full of holes, and keeping you two safe inside," Anakin rebutted as the lift stopped and opened its doors, revealing a great host of battle droids waiting for them.

"Oh poodoo," remarked Anakin as he and Obi Wan activated their lightsabres, while Kelly and the Master Chief raised their weapons. During the second of hesitation the droids displayed as they waited for orders, Kelly reached for her utility belt and pulled out a bubble shield generator, armed it, then threw it down onto the ground, magnetically locked itself to the deck plating then activated, just in time to stop the fury of red blaster fire that came from several squads of B1 and B2 battle droids that were in the corridor leading to the observation deck.

"Why didn't you use this in the turbolift shaft" Anakin asked slightly annoyed.

"Because it blocks weapons fire both ways and only lasts twenty seconds, sir," she retorted the younger general. Why this young man was made a general she would never understand, though right now she had a job to do as she and the chief used the time to get ready to sprint, their legs tensing as they waited for the inevitable shield failure.

"Reminds me of the time we rescued Doctor Halsey from the Covenant a few decades back, you remember Chief?" she asked in good spirits.

"Yeah, good times," said the Chief as his mind briefly wandered back to that time, when there had been more Spartan IIs.

Time seemed to stretch for the two Spartans as they waited for the bubble shield to run out of power and self-destruct, both had their assault rifles up and ready and both had chosen their targets, each taking one half of the corridor. The seconds ticked almost agonizingly slowly for Kelly, but like so many times before she kept her cool and suddenly the bubble shield dropped...

"Go," ordered the Chief and the two leapt forward into a full on sprint, Kelly had to slow herself slightly so the Chief could keep up with her. The two of them levelled their weapons and blasted away with their assault rifles as they sprinted down the corridor, blasting every droid in sight in their mad dash for the observation deck.

* * *

On the bridge of the Invisible Hand General Grievous stalked around the various consoles, keeping an eye on the progress of the battle.

A blue painted B1 pilot droid walked approached the cyborg general.

"General, we have located the intruders. They have split up into two groups. One group of two UNSC Spartans have disabled the hyperdrive and are now heading for the second larger group. There are two Jedi and two Spartans in the second group and are on their way towards the Observation deck, however there are still unconfirmed reports of Jedi and Spartans running around several decks."

"Just as Count Dooku predicted," said the cyborg general, though he was also slightly nervous by the presence of Spartans. "Send as many droids to the observation deck to stop them as necessary, they must not liberate the Chancellor."

"Roger, roger," nodded the pilot droid as it returned to its station and relayed the general's orders.

* * *

In a small room adjacent to the observation deck a wall of monitors showed the desperate resistance the battle droids put up against the Spartans, following their orders and their programming to the letter as an older man with a white beard and dark robes watched them, not really expecting the regular battle droids to put up much of a resistance, however it did allow him to see how they fought and gave him a chance to evaluate these new opponents.

In front of the wall monitors a verpine slicer worked on the security console, working feverishly to purge the system of the invasive AI that had invaded the ship's security systems.

"How long until the system is back under our control?" the elder gentleman demanded.

"Impossible to say, Count Dooku," replied the nervous insectoid, as he concentrated on the problem, but no matter what it did the damned UNSC AI remained, it was incredibly difficult to get rid of. "I'm afraid that we would have to shut down the security system and reboot with clean backups, however if the Spartans are not removed they could just reinsert the AI again, and we would have to do it all over again."

"Very well, I will deal with them myself, do not disappoint me," said Count Dooku menacingly as he left with his squad of MagnaGuards, leaving the cowering verpine to his work, who gave a shrug of relief when the count left.

* * *

A final pair of B2 battle droids stood guard at the entrance to the observation deck, and both opened fire as soon as the two Spartans and two Jedi came within sight, their Identify Friend/Foe programming had quickly identified them and left with no other options but to take them down. Quicker than greased lightning the two Spartans managed to find some cover before the droids blasters could bring down their shields while the Jedi used their lightsabres to block and deflect the incoming blaster bolts.

With a silent look between the two Spartans they both rose up from their cover and blasted the two last droids with their assault rifles, tearing them apart with high velocity plasma rounds that shredded them.

"You'd think that the Separatists would invest more in improving their front-line battle droids, I've seen far more effective resistance from squads of Unggoy," said Cortana as she quickly reviewed the recent combat footage from the Master Chief's helmet cameras.

"Considering they are built by the lowest bidder and are meant to overwhelm an enemy by sheer force of numbers it's not really surprising that they are so pathetic," replied Dove over a private comm. channel that the two Smart AIs shared between themselves that their Spartans couldn't hear.

"However they do have a few lines of improved battle droids though, like the BX and the MagnaGuard series, they're just not made in large numbers due to the cost of building such advanced and complicated droids when you could have simpler but less effective droids produced in far greater numbers at a fraction of the cost, and take their enemies down with superior numbers."

The four moved forward quickly to the entrance, the thick blast door blocked their way.

"Cortana, you're up," said the Master Chief as he extended his left hand towards the control console next to the blast doors.

"No problem," she said as an arc of golden electricity connected the Spartan's armour to the console as Cortana interfaced with the door controls and less than five seconds later the heavy blast doors opened, revealing the observation deck which had a truly magnificent view.

To the two Spartans having such a place as the commanding officer's quarters was the height of strategic stupidity. No UNSC commanding officer would expose themselves by having their quarters in such a vulnerable position, though considering the Separatist leadership's megalomania it wasn't so surprising.

At the far end, just a few metres in from the large observation windows sat the Supreme Chancellor in a throne-like chair, just waiting for his rescuers while being tied down by electrified cuffs built into the throne.

"Chancellor," said Master Kenobi respectfully in greeting.

"Are you alright?" Master Skywalker asked, worried for his second mentor.

"Count Dooku!" said the Chancellor as he gestured with his head to a second smaller hatch to the side of the observation deck. Standing a level up Count Dooku looked on imperiously as he gave a small hand gesture, and eight MagnaGuards rushed forward towards the four of them, activating their staffs and aiming their own powerful blasters.

"Your weapons please, we don't want to make a mess of things in front of the Chancellor now, do we?" said Dooku rhetorically. He jumped down from the second level down to the deck after his droid body guards took up flanking positions around the Spartans and Jedi.

"You four can't believe you can defeat him, he's a Sith Lord!" said the Chancellor.

"Chancellor, Sith Lords is our speciality," said Obi Wan confidently.

"And we've taken down far tougher foes than an old man with a squad of walking tin cans," said Kelly as she remembered all the fights both she and the Chief had gone through.

"I have been looking forward to this," the count said with great anticipation as he drew his lightsabre and ignited it, his own blade glowed a menacing red.

Moving forward slightly the two Jedi cast off their heavy outer robes and drew their own blue bladed lightsabres, while the Spartans readied their weapons and levelled them at the MagnaGuards who stood poised to attack.

"You Spartans have caused me more grief in the last three months than most jedi have in three years of war, it would be my great pleasure to have my droids tear you apart limb from limb. MagnaGuards deal with the Spartans," ordered Count Dooku as he moved forward towards the jedi as the droids charged the Spartans. Both Kenobi and Skywalker attacked near simultaneously, both aiming for the sith lord's arms to disarm him, however the elder sword-master parried their blows easily.

Both Kelly-087 and John-117 dove for cover as the MagnaGuards opened fire with their own blasters, both of them blasted away with their assault rifles on full auto in an attempt to suppress the droids, but to their surprise the droids armour held.

"Standard assault rifle fire isn't getting through, any suggestions?" John asked Cortana.

"Set your assault rifle to maximum power, that should do it," she suggested.

John quickly set the power settings on his rifle to maximum, knowing that he would have to be careful now, since setting his weapon to maximum the weapon's ammo pack would quickly run out of plasma energy, he would have to make every shot count.

Kelly on the other hand switched over to her automatic shotgun and quickly checked her weapon's double-drum clips, she was down one third of her clip, but smiled as she remembered that the clip was filled with APHE rounds, plenty enough for her to cause some havoc. She popped out of cover and sighted a MagnaGuard that was closing in on her with its staff held ready to strike. She fired off two quick shots that punctured its armoured torso and barely a second later promptly exploded, and bisected its body and crashed down to the floor.

John chose to pop out of cover a second after he heard Kelly's shotgun blasts and put a pair of short bursts of fire into another droid, one centre of mass, another shorter two shot burst into its head, then ducked again when the rest of the droids fired a concentrated barrage of blaster fire on his cover. Slowly but surely the table he was crouched behind of was slowly being blasted to shreds, but one of the droids took advantage of the covering fire provided by its fellow droids. It ran alongside the blaster fire, and gripped its extended phrik staff while its activated ends sparked a menacing purple. It leapt over the table and stabbed down with its staff at where the Spartan was hiding, at the same time the rest of the droids ceased fire and let their comrade take out their target. However the staff hit nothing but hardened deck plating, which confused the droid for a few moments as it scanned the room for its target.

It turned back towards the main fight after it looked around the immediate vicinity and spotted the other Spartan blasting away with her shotgun and her SMG blaster at two of his fellow MagnaGuards. It decided to attack her, and made ready to sprint forward when without warning a pair of energy blades sprouted out of its chest and the form of the Master Chief rematerialized behind him, his shields stealth mode deactivated as he pulled out his energy sword, a gift from the Arbiter, and proceeded to cut it up into several neat pieces then switched back to his assault rifle.

"Three down, five to go," he muttered to himself as he ran over towards Kelly who was steadily pumping out blast after blast from her shotgun, forcing the remaining MagnaGuards into cover.

"Having fun Chief?" Kelly asked happily as she continued her barrage.

"Oh yes, lots of fun," the Chief bantered back as he joined in with his assault rifle, spotted a droid that had popped out of cover to fire on them, and promptly filled it with plasma. "Four down, four to go," the Chief counted down quietly, though Kelly still heard him.

"I wish Fred and Linda were here for this, I think they would have found that duel over there quite interesting," she said and pointed out the still ongoing lightsabre duel going on between the two jedi and Dooku.

The Chief only spared a quick glance before he turned back to the gun battle. "Yes, they would," he said simply as he popped out of cover as the enemy's return fire increased, which forced both him and Kelly back into cover.

Suddenly a loud crack sounded, much louder than Kelly's shotgun, and a MagnaGuard fell with a massive hole in its chest. The audio sensors built into the two Spartans armour quickly tracked down the source and they saw Linda and Fred standing at the entrance to the observation deck, Linda's sniper rifle still smoking and Fred's Spartan Laser glowed red and was emitting a whining sound, it was charging up. Two of the MagnaGuards turned towards them, while the last one continued to pour it on John and Kelly. Fred waited until the last possible second then released the trigger, the laser beam blasted through one droid's armour and exited out the back and blew a hole through the deck plating a few metres behind it, while Linda blasted the other with her rifle.

John and Kelly took the opportunity to blast the last MagnaGuard into scrap metal with assault rifle and shotgun respectively. "Glad you two could make it," said Kelly in greeting.

"Couldn't let you two have all the fun," said Fred as they made their way down the steps and met up with their fellow Spartans. The two finally noticed the lightsabre duel nearby and were surprised at how fast and fluid the three combatants were moving, especially since one of them was an elderly human well past his prime who was duelling two very experienced and much younger opponents.

"Should we assist?" Kelly asked as she took aim with her shotgun.

"No, not yet, we'll let the jedi deal with Dooku, Fred and Linda, you two secure the exits, Kelly stay close by the duellists, I'll release the Chancellor," the Master Chief ordered quickly, the others quickly obeyed.

Kelly kept her shotgun trained on Dooku, but could not fire, the duel was so fast and the combatants were moving all over the place, a stray shot from her shotgun may hit one of the jedi, and they could not afford to lose anyone at this point.

Dooku managed to kick away Skywalker then grabbed Kenobi by the throat with the Force and was sent flying into a nearby bulkhead, sailing over Kelly's head, forcing her to duck, and slumped unconscious, then as if to add insult to injury Dooku dropped a piece of the balcony on top of him. Kelly took action and opened up with her shotgun, blasting away with heavy APHE rounds, though the old man was easily dodging them, anticipating the large heavy slugs' flight path and either fluidly sidestepped them or blocked them with his lightsabre.

She quickly ran out of bullets and Dooku saw this chance to remove one of the Spartans who had been a real thorn in his side for months. He rushed forward, aiming to run her through her heart with his lightsabre. Reacting with super enhanced reflexes she discarded her shotgun and reached for her second backup weapon on her back, drawing a long curved katana sword. As soon as it was out of its sheath a blue layer of plasma enveloped it, much like Fred's combat knives, and she parried the blow, even though she knew her suit's shields would protect her, she wasn't about to allow herself be struck by an energy sword again, like when she tangled with an Elite before she got the Mark V Mjolnir armour.

Her strength and speed surprised Dooku, he felt a small spark of Force sensitivity within her, but it was not big enough to warrant extensive training, in fact he sensed the Force in all four of the Spartans, but none of them were strong in the Force, enough for them to have a bond he guessed, but not enough to warrant full on jedi or sith training. Red lightsabre clashed with blue katana as the Sith Lord and the Spartan duelled hard and fast, Kelly's superior speed and reflexes gave her an incredible edge, though the older human's own training and experience meant he could hold his own, though only for a short time. Dooku leapt back and sent a powerful burst of Force Lightning at her. She attempted to block with her katana but the lightning continued along the plasma encased sword's hilt and connected with her shields. The lightning ate away at her shields strength faster than she anticipated and before she could react the lightning had connected with her suit, the pain was indescribable, she had been hit by enemy fire before, but the pain was something deeper, more painful than anything she had experienced in living memory, and she screamed, for the first time in her life since she got her augmentations she screamed in pain.

Suddenly the pain stopped and she fell to her knees, her armour seemed to weigh down on her more than they should, and she noticed that her HUD was not functioning and all she could see for the moment was the grey deck plating, the armour's systems were overloaded and had to reboot, luckily for her it only lasted for a few seconds and she soon saw that it was Skywalker who had stepped in and stopped the Count's attack upon her.

Anakin had watched from the sidelines in a daze as he watched the female Spartan battle Dooku, amazed again at her speed, strength and grace, but when he saw him attack her with Force Lightning he knew she wouldn't last long. He ran forward and blocked his attack with his lightsabre, and moved forward, one step at a time, even as Dooku pushed more power into his attack, his face showed a dark scowl of hideous rage as he poured everything he had into his attack, ignoring everything else.

That became his downfall.

From three different sources at the same time shots were fired. Both Fred and John fired their assault rifles at him on full auto while Linda fired her sniper rifle. Dooku had no time to react as all three Spartans weapons connected with him, the rifles hit centre-of-mass in his torso while Linda's sniper round cored through his head between his eyes.

"Target eliminated," said Linda with no emotion, but under her helmet's polarized visor where nobody could see a small smile of satisfaction displayed itself for just a few moments. _That's what you get when you hurt one of us. _She quickly moved towards Kelly and checked her over.

"How are you Kelly?" she asked.

"I'll be fine in a moment, just need to get my bearings," Kelly responded, though she was all pins and needles across her skin, and her skin felt like it had been burnt, but built-in injectors quickly sprayed a thin film of biofoam over her wounds, stung for a few seconds then numbed.

Anakin meanwhile moved over to his fallen master. "He's still alive," he exclaimed happily and picked him up off the deck.

Chancellor Palpatine, who had just been freed from his chair by the Master Chief, came forward. "Anakin leave him, we have no time, and we must leave before more security droids arrive."

"His fate will be the same as ours," Anakin gently rebutted, and made to carry his master in a fireman's carry.

"Sir, allow me," said Fred, Anakin was reluctant, but his duty was to rescue the Chancellor, though he didn't like the way he had dismissed his old mentor as expendable, he would do his duty.

"We must get to the hangar bay and see if we can find an escape craft," he said the four Spartans merely nodded and they moved towards the turbolift, with Linda supporting Kelly and Kenobi draped across Fred's shoulders.

* * *

**UNSC Iowa**

Deep within the Iowa Admiral Nimitz stood over the main plotting table in the CIC with the ship's captain nearby directing the ship while he directed his small fleet.

"We're in position sir, we've blocked the Invisible Hand's escape route," reported Captain Miranda Keyes.

"Excellent. Is there any news from Blue Team?"

"They've reported that they have disabled the ship's hyperdrive and have rescued the Chancellor and are now making their way down to the hangar deck. They have requested pick-up as soon as possible." As she said this the ship rocked from a weapon's impact against the shields.

"The Invisible Hand just opened fire on us, shields are holding at sixty two percent," Surge reported. "She is closing in on us fast, judging by her course and speed I believe she is attempting to run the blockade." Surge looked to the side for a moment. "The Republic warship Guarlara is moving to intercept the Invisible Hand, she is moving into position for a broadside exchange with the Invisible Hand."

"Communications send a message to the Guarlara, priority 1, tell them that the chancellor is aboard that ship and that they have to stand down," the admiral quickly ordered.

"Message sent," reported the communications officer. There were a few tense seconds as he waited for confirmation. "The Guarlara acknowledges receipt of transmission and are holding position, hanging back with us."

"Communications, open a channel to the Invisible Hand, it's time I had a few words with this General Grievous."

Seconds later, on one of the larger screens, the ugly visage of the cyborg general presented itself.

"_Greeting UNSC scum, are you offering to surrender to me?"_

"No, but I'd be more than happy to accept your own surrender, in case you hadn't noticed you're facing almost my entire battle group as well as several Republic warships blocking your escape."

"_Not so hasty Admiral, I have the Chancellor aboard my ship, if you open fire upon my ship I will personally disembowel him and display his rotten corpse across the holo-net, I may do that anyway if you do not let me pass within the next ten minutes."_

"We don't negotiate with terrorists, not without proof of life of the hostage, give me proof that he is still alive and we may consider it," said the admiral, internally smirking at the thought that he already knew that the Chancellor was already free and within the next few minutes would be off the good general's ship.

General Grievous turned to his subordinates and gave a few orders then quite agitated he stepped out of the cam's line of sight, he came back shortly.

"_Uh, I'm afraid that the Chancellor is indisposed."_

"Really, well unless you can give me proof that the Chancellor is still alive you leave me with no choice but to assume that he is dead and that means your ship becomes my priority target, you've seen what our MAC guns do to your ships, imagine what my main MAC gun will do to your ship if I do not receive proof of life within nine minutes. End Communication."

"Admiral the Rescue Pelican is on approach to the Invisible Hand's portside landing bay and the Spartan's are making good progress towards the hangar," Captain Keyes reported.

"Very good captain, communications open a channel to the Guarlara, I believe I have an idea that I think her captain will like a lot," the admiral said smirking.

* * *

AN: What do you think, comments, criticism, anything?


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